Earlier I posted that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sticking around. One of the reasons so many of us were biting our nails over who would win the presidency was our fear that another Republican president would continue the Reagan/Bush conservative judicial trajectory and subsequent decline (see: Scalia, Antonin et al) of our judiciary, and as a result, our democracy, civil rights, and legal system.

But even with an Obama win, judicial nominations have been moving at a snail’s pace, and of course, Republicans have blocked the president every step of the way.

Let’s hope that will finally begin to change. WaPo:

Reelected with strong support from women, ethnic minorities and gays, Obama is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress.

The president has named three dozen judicial candidates since January and is expected to nominate scores more over the next few months, aides said. The push marks a significant departure from the sluggish pace of appointments throughout much of his first term, when both Republicans and some Democrats complained that Obama had not tried hard enough to fill vacancies on federal courts.

The new wave of nominations is part of an effort by Obama to cement a legacy that long outlives his presidency and makes the court system more closely resemble the changing society it governs, administration officials said. [...]

Obama has already broken more barriers with his judicial appointments than any other president, aides said. At the circuit court level, four states now have their first female justices, five have their first black justices and two have their first Hispanics. Sonia Sotomayor also became the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.

Not to mention, President Obama has nominated the first openly gay black man to sit on a federal district court, the first Asian American lesbian, and the first South Asian.

As we speak, 35 nominees are waiting for the Senate to vote, and there are still 50 more vacancies.

It would be novel if the GOP would consider doing their jobs and allow the president to do his instead of repeatedly putting these up: