Senate set for late night as battle over judicial nominees rages on

The Senate is set for a late night on Wednesday, as Democrats attempt to shepherd through a number of judicial nominees to fill vacancies weeks before they hand over control of the upper chamber to Republicans in January.

The chamber is set to hold votes that could last into Thursday as part of the push, marking the second night where members will be burning the midnight oil. That judicial offensive kicked off on Monday, when Democrats unexpectedly sought to advance more than a dozen judges, including a highly contentious circuit court nominee.

That prompted Republicans to pump the brakes and make life arduous for their colleagues by holding procedural votes to switch the chamber from executive to legislative session and back again, dragging out the votes in the process.

The process will happen once again Wednesday night.

“We’ll continue working on judges throughout the day and into this evening,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) during his floor remarks. “We have a lot of excellent nominees to work through, so I ask my colleagues to be flexible, to be ready to stay late and to keep the votes moving quickly.”

On top of the judicial votes taken Wednesday morning and early afternoon, senators are set to vote on a trio of resolutions offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would block transfers of tank rounds, mortars and bomb guidance kits to Israel. This set will start around 6 p.m.

Those would be followed by a vote on Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) resolution that would block the Biden administration from canceling more than $4.5 billion in repayments by Ukraine to the U.S.

Judicial votes are expected to eventually follow on the nominations of Sparkle Sooknanan and Brian Murphy to become district judges for the districts of D.C. and Massachusetts, respectively.

One source noted that the list represented the current plan, but that it could be altered depending on changes in attendance.

As they have all week, absences are expected to play a role once again for Republicans, which paved the way for a number of judicial nominees to win confirmation this week. Headlining that list was the vote on Embry Kidd, who was confirmed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday when five Senate Republicans were no-shows. If they had all shown up, the GOP could have defeated the nomination.

The same situation came into play on Wednesday, when Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) separately voted against two district court nominees, leaving Democrats with only 50 votes and unable to break a tie, as Vice President Harris is in Hawaii.

However, not all Senate GOP members were present. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) missed both, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) missed the morning vote.

Cruz returned to Capitol Hill around lunchtime after traveling back from West Palm Beach, Fla., earlier in the day. He traveled with President-elect Trump on Tuesday for the SpaceX rocket launch in Brownsville, Texas.

Braun has been attending a conference for incoming governors, two GOP sources said. He did not seek reelection to the Senate and will take over as governor of Indiana next month.

Republicans were hopping mad about the voting absences on Monday and Tuesday, which were headlined by Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), President-elect Trump’s choice to run the State Department.

“Not personally or directly. Just generally,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) when asked if he got any guff from his colleagues at lunch about missing votes on Tuesday as he traveled with Cruz to see the rocket launch.

“We just had a good discussion about it now about making sure with some of these we actually have a shot at blocking, at making sure we can be here,” Cramer said. “I think there’s pretty much a renewed commitment to everybody being here.”