Democratic leaders are ratcheting up the judicial wars in the Senate, taking direct aim at Republicans who have threatened to block any high-level court nominees until the November elections.

On Thursday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed a procedural motion to bring up the nomination of Robert Bacharach of Oklahoma to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, daring Republicans to block a nominee supported by both parties. Sixty votes would be needed on Monday evening to prevent a filibuster from derailing the nomination.

Reid's move could fail because Republicans have invoked the so-called Thurmond Rule, an informal custom in the Senate in which the opposition party prevents the president from getting any more high-level nominees confirmed to lifetime spots in the final months before the elections. Democrats argue that the move unfairly would block several consensus nominees to appeals courts, including Bacharach, who is supported by the Republican senators from his state.

Still, the GOP says it’s perfectly consistent with past practices, calling the rule the Leahy-Thurmond Rule, referring to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) actions under President George W. Bush. The Republican move has stalled the nominations of Patty Shwartz nomination of New Jersey to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Richard Taranto for the federal circuit, William Kayatta of Maine for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The winner of the elections, they say, should determine the lifetime seats.

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2012/07/senate-dems-step-up-judicial-wars-130243.html?hp=f3