As part of my continuing fascination with Bill Pryor’s nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, I thought I’d mention that the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote for Pryor tomorrow. (If you’re new to The Carpetbagger Report and don’t know why I care about this, you can check some of my previous posts on the issue.)
All indications are that the committee will approve him on a party line vote, but there’s still some hope that Dems might find one reasonable Republican (maybe Specter?) and succeed in killing the nomination before reaching the Senate floor. Then again, I’m not optimistic.
Assuming Pryor gets through the Judiciary Committee, his nomination would go to the full Senate, where it’d likely face a well-deserved filibuster.
The preferable option is, as I’ve said, beating him in committee. In case you wanted to do some last-minute lobbying, here’s a list of Judiciary Committee members:
10 Republicans — Hatch (Utah), Grassley (Iowa), Specter (Penn.), Kyl (Ariz.), DeWine (Ohio), Sessions (Ala.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Craig (Idaho), Chambliss (Ga.), and Cornyn (Texas) — and 9 Democrats — Leahy (Vt.), Kennedy (Mass.), Biden (Del.), Kohl (Wis.), Feinstein (Calif.), Feingold (Wis.), Schumer (N.Y.), Durbin (Ill.), and Edwards (N.C.).
I’ll let you know what happens.