Civil Rights Coalition: Defeat of Filibuster Should Encourage Senate to Move Quickly to Fill Other Judicial Vacancies

Washington, DC – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement following the Senate’s 63-33 vote to defeat a filibuster that would have blocked a confirmation vote for John J. “Jack” McConnell, a judicial nominee for the District Court of Rhode Island:

“The Senate wisely stepped back from the brink of disaster today by defeating a filibuster that would have blocked the full Senate from considering the confirmation of John J. ‘Jack’ McConnell, a Rhode Island district court nominee. McConnell, voted out of the Judiciary Committee three times with bipartisan support, is an outstanding lawyer supported by his home-state senators and people across the political spectrum in Rhode Island.

The effort to block McConnell’s confirmation was unwarranted and ill-advised; it would have set an extremely damaging precedent for using filibusters to stop qualified nominees to the district court. Fortunately, a number of senators put aside partisan differences and shunned a vicious, corporate-led smear campaign against McConnell to do what’s right for the Senate, our judiciary, and our nation. We applaud the votes of Sens. Alexander, Brown, Chambliss, Collins, Graham, Isakson, Kirk, McCain, Murkowski, and Thune, and commend the leadership of Majority Leader Reid, Judiciary Chairman Leahy, and Rhode Island Sens. Reed and Whitehouse.

Having voted to confirm  McConnell, the Senate should keep moving quickly to consider the many other qualified judicial nominees who have been forced to wait an extraordinary amount of time for Senate confirmation votes. There are still more than 90 lower court vacancies to fill, 35 of which have been categorized as ‘judicial emergencies.’ Empty courtrooms don’t serve the cause of justice.”

Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.