Republicans on Tuesday ripped JD Vance, Marco Rubio and others for their absences from the chamber, which allowed Senate Democrats to ram through key Biden judicial nominees.
Vance (R-OH), the vice president-elect, and Rubio (R-FL), Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of State, weren’t the only GOP senators missing, but they were singled out.
Asked about the absences of several GOP senators who could have blocked President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees from moving forward, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) fumed.
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“I’m not going to bubble wrap it,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “There’s no excuse for that, it’s our job to be here and vote.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board excoriated the absent Republicans for handing Democrats a lame-duck victory, starting with Monday’s confirmation of an appellate court nominee who, the WSJ noted, “will now enjoy a lifetime appointment to the federal bench because Republicans couldn’t get their full team on the field.”
The editorial cited a since-deleted tweet from Vance in which he said he was busy meeting with Trump to interview candidates for several positions, including FBI Director to replace Chris Wray, a top target of Trump.
“Nice to hear he’s on the job that begins in January, which is two months away,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “But a few good GOP excuses can mean a lifetime on the bench. Republican Senators have a duty in the lame duck to show up for these votes. Any judicial vacancy that goes unfilled now will be Mr. Trump’s to nominate someone to fill.”
On Tuesday, Vance missed the procedural vote that paved the way for one of President Joe Biden’s federal judicial nominees. He returned later to vote against confirming the judge but, with other Republicans absent, it was too late.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was also among those missing as he and others joined President-elect Donald Trump in Texas to witness billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch.
All the GOP absences allowed the Senate to confirm Mustafa Taher Kasubhai by a vote of 51 to 44 to be a U.S. District Court judge in Oregon. GOP Senators who did not vote included Cruz, Rubio, Mike Braun of Indiana, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.
The GOP no-shows who allowed Biden’s judicial nominee to sneak through sparked outrage throughout the online MAGAsphere.
“If we don’t show up, we lose,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), lectured his colleagues Tuesday. “I don’t care what the reasons were. We have fewer than 15 scheduled legislative days. You have to show up. Period. End of story. There’s nothing more important.”
Just hours earlier, Trump had demanded that Senate Republicans “show up and hold the line” to prevent more liberal judges from being confirmed in the waning days of the Democrats' majority in the Senate.
The new GOP-controlled Congress will convene on Jan. 3, 2025, over two weeks before Trump is set to be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States.
Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are determined to approve as many Biden nominees to the federal bench as possible before they lose power. On Tuesday, they outfoxed Republicans.
“We had some of these judges killed dead as Woodrow Wilson,“ Kennedy of Louisiana said, “and our vote wasn’t here.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also registered his disgust over the unforced error on the part of Senate Republicans for allowing a Democratic jurist from Florida to win confirmation on Monday to serve on the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
That judge, Embry Kidd, was confirmed 49 to 45 to serve on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, even with Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) joining Republicans to vote against his nomination.
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