WASHINGTON (JTA) — The National Council of Jewish Women and the Reform movement joined a letter urging the Senate Republican leader to accelerate approval of President Obama’s nominees.
"We seek your cooperation in eliminating the troubling backlog of judicial and executive branch nominees that exists to date in the 111th Congress," says the letter sent Tuesday to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader. "The obstruction of many of President Obama’s nominees through filibuster threats and anonymous ‘holds’ is hindering the important work of our judicial and executive branches of government and threatening any prospect of bipartisan cooperation on many pressing national issues important to all Americans."
The letter, signed by NCJW, Women of Reform Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism among about 40 ethnic and civil liberties groups, focuses on the failure so far to confirm a number of nominees for the federal bench and for senior positions in the Justice Department. It is not clear if it is Republicans who are obstructing all the candidates.
NCJW joined efforts under the Bush administration to block the nomination of judges with conservative records on abortion and discrimination issues.
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