A Statistical Analysis of Judicial Nominations, and More from CRS
For a variety of reasons, from institutional lethargy to calculated tactical opposition, the rate at which the Obama Administration’s judicial nominees are confirmed by Congress has become painfully slow, to the detriment of the judicial system and the possibility of justice itself.
A new Congressional Research Service analysis of judicial nominations and confirmations since the 1980s found that the duration of the confirmation process is now extraordinarily long even in those cases when it concludes successfully.
“President Obama is the only one of the five most recent Presidents for whom, during his first term, both the average and median waiting time from nomination to confirmation for circuit and district court nominees was greater than half a calendar year (i.e., more than 182 days),” the CRS analysis determined.
See President Obama’s First-Term U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations: An Analysis and Comparison with Presidents Since Reagan, May 2, 2013.
Some other new or newly updated CRS reports that Congress has not made readily available to the public include the following.
Legislative Branch: FY2013 Appropriations, May 2, 2013
Extending Unemployment Compensation Benefits During Recessions, May 2, 2013
U.S. Household Savings for Retirement in 2010, April 30, 2013
Counting Regulations: An Overview of Rulemaking, Types of Federal Regulations, and Pages in the Federal Register, May 1, 2013
Budget Control Act: Potential Impact of Sequestration on Health Reform Spending, May 1, 2013
Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress, May 1, 2013
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Political Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests, May 1, 2013
The United Nations Human Rights Council: Issues for Congress, April 30, 2013
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]
A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.
In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]