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Stalled nominee Restrepo clears Senate committee

WASHINGTON – Philadelphia Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo, whose nomination to a federal district court seat has become a flashpoint in a broader political battle over President Obama's judicial picks, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning in a voice vote.

Restrepo, a judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, will now await confirmation by the full Senate to fill an emergency vacancy on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals of cases brought in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

After being nominated in November and endorsed by Pennsylvania's bipartisan Senate delegation, Restrepo has waited nearly eight months for confirmation, adding another example to Democrats' complaint that the GOP is slow-walking Obama nominees, hoping to stall as many as possible before the president leaves office. A president's power to shape the judiciary can have a lasting impact on the nation's laws.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), the committee's top Democrat, said that by this point in 2007, when President Bush was in office and Democrats held the Senate, his party had confirmed 25 Bush nominees. So far this year, Republicans have confirmed five Obama nominees. After Thursday morning's committee votes, 14 have cleared the panel but are still awaiting a floor vote, Leahy said.

"It's not enough just to get them out of," committee, he said.

The chair of the judiciary committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), said the committee has held hearings on just as many nominees this year as Democrats held in 2007. His aides have argued that nominees that would normally have been approved early this year were instead jammed through by Democrats late last year, before they lost control of the Senate.

"I have a suggested response, but I think what I'd like to do is get this meeting over," Grassley said, before proceeding to a series of quick, non-controversial votes, including advancing Restrepo and two other judicial nominees.

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