Confirmation of highly qualified 10th Circuit nominee left to languish some more

Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn both say they strongly support Bacharach’s nomination. Indeed Coburn, R-Muskogee, said Monday that Bacharach was the best appellate court nominee he had seen during his eight years in the Senate.

And yet neither Coburn nor Inhofe, R-Tulsa, did the honorable thing Monday by voting to end a Republican filibuster that’s kept Bacharach’s nomination from getting an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Instead they voted “present.” Sixty votes were needed. The tally came up four short, with three Republicans and two independents joining the 51 Democrats in voting to advance Bacharach’s nomination.

Bacharach is a victim of what Coburn has called a “stupid” Senate custom, used through the years by both parties, to slow the confirmations of appeals court nominees in presidential election years when the president is from the other party. Bacharach is considered a top-shelf jurist, and it’s expected he would win easy approval in the full Senate. His sin was being nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama.