Mind your own business, Senator Lee

Two judicial nominees in West Virginia have fallen victim to the knee-jerk obstruction of a senator from thousands of miles away.

In an op-ed for the Charleston Gazette, AFJ President Nan Aron takes a look at the nominees and the senator standing in their way:

I'm willing to bet that people in West Virginia, like most Americans, have never heard of Mike Lee. He's the junior U.S. Senator from Utah, and has been in office for all of two years. Yet, he has decided all by himself that West Virginia can't have new federal judges.

He's mad at President Obama, so he's throwing a legislative fit and has vowed to block all of the president's appointments to the federal courts, including two from West Virginia...

President Obama, working closely with Senators Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, has appointed Gina Groh from Charles Town to fill a seat on the U.S. District Court, and Stephanie Dawn Thacker from Charleston to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. These are highly qualified individuals with impeccable records and are fully representative of West Virginia values. They have bipartisan support and were unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Click here to read the rest of Nan's column.