With all the news about President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, it’s easy to forget that Obama nominated a different judge to a different court before well before Sonia Sotomayor became a household name.
Obama nominated David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit court of appeals back in March, and, thanks to a number of Republican delays, he has only today been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line 12-7 vote.
Now Hamilton will be exposed to a bright new world of procedural measures meant to obstruct his confirmation. Back in April, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said he would filibuster Hamilton once the committee advanced the nomination. “I had to come to the floor to speak so that the American people, who are very concerned about this nomination, will know that I and my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee are taking interest and are not just going to let this nomination sail through,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor. “In fact I will filibuster David Hamilton.”
That’s the same James Inhofe who once called judicial filibusters ‘unconstitutional.’
(Incidentally, Hamilton is the brother-in-law of Dawn Johnsen–another Obama nominee who’s struggling to get confirmed by the Senate.)
