Chuck Grassley

President Donald Trump and Utah Sen. Mike Lee are urging the Senate to hurry and approve the president’s judicial appointments before they lose the majority in the upper chamber come January. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began the effort to consider and advance the remaining judicial nominees. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s top Republican, dismissed Democratic complaints that Republicans were bypassing long-standing practices for nominations to speed up the process. “I want to be very clear. Some Democrats so despise President Trump that for the first time in our nation’s history they’re planning to stonewall a president’s ability to appoint judges,” Grassley said about Democrats taking the majority for Trump’s final two years in office. Still, on Tuesday, four Democrats on the committee voted through a district court judge nomination that the president appointed. The action in the committee Tuesday came just after Trump shared online that it is “very important” for the Senate to confirm the outstanding nominations. Trump said there were 161 pending nominations, including 25 federal judge positions. Lee, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also has been vocal about advancing Trump’s picks. In an X post on Monday afternoon, he urged the Senate to confirm one judge to the 8th Circuit court, along with the rest of Trump’s pending nominees. “If the Senate doesn’t do this now, it’s unlikely President Trump will be able to fill these positions in the next Congress,” Lee wrote. If some of the appointments are approved by the full Senate, Trump would add to a growing list of nominees approved by Congress. Should Democrats block all of Trump’s picks when they take the majority for the last half of his term, the president will still end his second term with far fewer appointments than during his first term in the White House. Trump trails other presidents in appointing judges in his second term Pew Research Center found that by mid-October, Trump had appointed fewer federal judges so far in his second term than at the same point in his first term. Additionally, Trump’s pace trails most other recent presidents, the Pew analysis found. But the latest dash to approve those nominees stems from concern that after the lame-duck session this fall ends, Republicans won’t be able to achieve much of their own or Trump’s agenda until at least 2028. Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Republicans on that matter on Tuesday, highlighting how they were cutting corners after the midterms to advance some of Trump’s picks. Durbin noted that they were considering nominees less than a month after receiving paperwork and before FBI background checks were cleared with the Senate. “Why?” he questioned. “Because Republicans are losing the majority and they are afraid that unqualified MAGA loyalists won’t withstand close scrutiny when Democrats are in the majority.”