Senate Republicans believe that no more judicial nominees should be confirmed for the balance of the year until the elections, citing something called the Thurmond rule, which sets an arbitrary deadline for election-year confirmations. Senate Democrats don’t believe that has been reached yet and want to continue to get judges confirmed, citing the low percentage [...]

One of the few areas of progress in recent months has been the confirmation of judges by the Senate. Under a deal in the spring, 17 judges got confirmed, stretched out over a period of several weeks. And when that deal expired, a few more judges trickled in with confirmations. In all, 20 judges have [...]