GOP set to push judicial nominee (Maryland - heads up!)

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

Marylanders - watch out. If Mr. Sarbanes and Ms. Mikulski make good on this - and knowing them, they will - the Repubs will try to get 'em, at the Federal and teh State level.

Ms. Mikulski - MY favorite Senator - is up for reelection in 2004.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.judge05nov05,0,4622256.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

WASHINGTON - As they prepare a push to call attention to the Democrats' campaign to block President Bush's judicial nominees, Senate Republicans plan to move ahead on the nomination of Claude A. Allen of Virginia, Bush's choice for a federal appeals court seat that has traditionally gone to a Marylander.

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But Democrats on the committee are all but certain to object to advancing Allen's nomination - which has been vehemently opposed by Maryland's two Democratic senators - and thereby delay it for an additional week.

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Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes say the seat, which became vacant in 2000 with the death of Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. of Baltimore, rightfully belongs to Maryland. They have accused Bush of nominating someone from Virginia, which is represented in the Senate by two Republicans, as a way to cut them out of the process.

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Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele appeared with Hatch and a handful of prominent black conservatives yesterday at a Capitol Hill news conference to call on Democrats to stop blocking Bush's judicial picks. Steele said he and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. would work with Senate Republicans to make sure that the state retains three seats on the court.