As the Senate wraps up business in the last week before its traditional month-long summer recess, the Senate Republican leadership has voiced plans to bring several contentious judicial nominations to the floor for a vote.
Senate Republicans are expected to file a cloture motion today on William Pryor, President Bush’s extremist right-wing nominee to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, according to CongressDaily. Pryor's nomination, which could be blocked by a Senate filibuster, could come to the floor for a vote on Wednesday. "We're ready to go," Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told CongressDaily. "I think the majority leader is ready to go.” Pryor was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee just last week in a party-line vote.
On Friday, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed a third cloture motion on Priscilla Owen, President Bush's far-right nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Senate Democrats have held a filibuster on Owen since April, despite two attempts by Senate Republicans to break that filibuster with a cloture vote.
Currently a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, Owen was rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee last year for her consistently anti-women's rights and anti-workers' rights rulings. Despite this, Bush renominated Owen after the Republicans won control of the Senate in the 2002 elections.
6/18/2013 Supreme Court Strikes Down Proof of Citizenship Voter Requirements - On Monday, the United States Supreme Court struck down an Arizona law requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship before being allowed register to vote.
In an opinion written [PDF] by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that the Arizona statute violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA, also known as the "Motor Voter Law") of 1993, which created a federal form that individuals can mail in to register to vote in federal elections. . . .
6/18/2013 Pakistani Women's University Bus, Hospital Bombed - A bus for a women's university in Pakistan and the hospital that treated victims from the blast were bombed on Saturday, killing 14 students and 24 others at the hospital.
The bus was transporting female students and teachers from Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University in Quetta, located in the southwestern part of Pakistan. . . .
6/18/2013 Taliban Attack In Afghan Capital As NATO Transfers Power - Yesterday, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) transferred responsibility for the country's security forces to the Afghan government after a bomb blast targeting a political official left three civilians dead in Kabul. . . .
