Judicial nominee Robert E. Bacharach blocked by Republicans again

The Oklahoma City magistrate, who enjoys bipartisan support for nomination to federal appeals court, has to wait another week to clear the same committee that approved him overwhelmingly last year.

D.C. Notes

Vote on Oklahoma nominee

for federal court is delayed

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans, who delayed a vote for several months last year on federal appeals court nominee Robert E. Bacharach, kept him from advancing Thursday out of the same committee that overwhelmingly approved him last summer.

Bacharach and two other nominees were on Thursday's agenda of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Charles Grassley, of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, asked that the votes be delayed for a week.

Bacharach, a federal magistrate judge in Oklahoma City, has been waiting for more than a year for confirmation to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the federal courts a step below the U.S. Supreme Court.

The seat for which Bacharach has been nominated has been vacant since July 2010.

Bacharach sailed through the committee last year but his nomination got caught up in election-year politics, as Senate Republicans blocked votes on circuit court nominees and many district court nominees.

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