7 judges were voted out of the Senate judicial committee today. DiFi voted by proxy.

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45. There have been 18 nominations, approved b efore Feinstein became ill

that haven't been put before the Senate, even though her absence had no impact on their prospects in the Senate (even with Fetterman out, there were 49 Democrats and no more than 49 republicans). In the entire time Biden has been president, the largest number of nominees confirmed by the full Senate in a single month is 13, which is close to the number confirmed in the period that Feinstein was unavailable.

There currently are only 13 nominees that haven't been considered by the Committee. Two of them were nominated this week. Four were nominated on March 21, two on February 27, three in late January, one in November 2022 and one in September 2022. Given that it usually takes at least a month from the date on which a nomination is sent to the Committee and that nomination if voted on, and given that Congress was on recess from March 31, there clearly was no Feinstein-related delay in considering six of the thirteen. As for why the other seven weren't considered before the end of February, when Feinstein was available, you'd have to ask the committee. But it wasn't because Feinstein wasn't available.

If Feinsteins returns in a month or two, and the Committee votes out the pending nominations, by that point, the Senate potentially could have cleared its backlog of approved nominations and move quickly to confirm those newly approved nominees

Thus, as a practical matter, Feinstein's absence hasn't delayed the confirmation of any judges (since judges continued to be confirmed during her absence). And it is not clear why nominations that dated back well before Feinstein became ill weren't put before the Committee before she became unavailable.

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