President Trump’s judicial nominees are running into roadblocks from an unlikely source: conservative Republican senators.
Per The Hill:
GOP leaders view the president’s court picks as their top priority — smashing records for the pace of influential appeals court picks. They are also on the brink of setting the fastest confirmation pace for judicial nominees overall.
But a recent string of nominees is facing skepticism from Republican senators who are either sinking their nominations or raising questions about their ability to be confirmed.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) became the latest member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to send up a warning flare that he could vote against one of Trump’s picks.
Kennedy said that Steven Menashi, nominated for the 2nd Circuit appeals court, could be “Oliver Wendell Scalia” but that he couldn’t vote for him unless he gets a clear picture of how Menashi thinks about legal issues.
Another judge, Halil Suleyman Ozerden, has come under fire from conservative groups for dismissing a case involving Obamacare’s birth control mandate.