Flashback to 1992: When Democrats Halted a Republican President’s Judicial Nominees

Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / February 17, 2016 / 10 comments

If Senate Democrats get their way, Republicans won’t follow their example. That is, Senate Republicans in 2016 won’t act as Democrats did when they blocked court confirmations in 1992.
Twenty-four years ago looked a lot like the inverse of today. On the eve of a presidential election, there was a Republican in the White House and a Democrat majority in the Senate.

Now those roles are reversed—and so is the Democrat perspective on judicial nominees.

Rather than confirming President George H.W. Bush’s picks for federal judgeships, The New York Times from Sept. 1, 1992, reports, Senate Democrats delayed nominees “to preserve the vacancies for [Arkansas] Gov. Bill Clinton to fill if he is elected president.”....Senate Democrats wanted to leave approximately 50 judgeships open for “presumably more liberal nominees.” ..... 

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