President Barack Obama's victory is good news for two judicial nominees in Oklahoma

With President Barack Obama's victory, the nominations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Bacharach and Tulsa attorney John E. Dowdell should “fly through” the Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn said Wednesday.

Bacharach, a magistrate judge in Oklahoma City, was tapped by Obama early this year for a seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the nation's appellate courts a step below the U.S. Supreme Court. Dowdell was nominated for a U.S. district judgeship in Tulsa.

Both won bipartisan praise and support in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but their nominations bogged down in election-year politics as Republicans — employing a tactic that has also been used by Democrats — refused to advance nominations in the last few months before the presidential election.

Had Republican Mitt Romney won, he would have been able to make his own judicial nominations.

Oklahoma City attorney Dan Webber, the former U.S. attorney in the Oklahoma City region, said Wednesday that the Senate “could and should approve the backlog of President Obama's judicial nominees that have been pending for months.”

“Most of the nominees, including Judge Bacharach and John Dowdell, face little or no opposition and could be confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. The Senate could confirm a dozen or more nominees, including the Oklahomans, in less than an hour.”