21.   Meanwhile, Leahy is neglecting the clear constitutional duty to act on judicial nominations.

22.   Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee held makeshift, standing-room-only hearings on judicial nominations.

23.   Now, district attorneys rarely oppose federal judicial nominations so openly, especially when made by a president of their own party.

24.   Overseeing the largely secretive judicial nomination process is White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice.

25.   Other Democrats defended the process set up by the committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to review judicial nominations from the Bush administration.

26.   President Bush temporarily avoided a major political embarrassment Thursday when his fellow Republicans succeeded in delaying a Senate committee vote on the judicial nomination of Charles Pickering.

27.   Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., said the Jeffords defection gives the Democrats more power over judicial nominations.

28.   Some of the battle lines for fights over judicial nominations were already in evidence in recent weeks, Eastland said.

29.   The appointment, and the bipartisan support Silverman is expected to receive in the Senate, is another signal that a logjam of federal judicial nominations is breaking up.

30.   The Democrats who then controlled the Senate handled judicial nominations by Presidents Reagan and Bush in a reasonable way, confirming most in good time.