Remaking the Courts: Another Obama D.C. Circuit Nominee Defeated

Tuesday evening, the U.S. Senate voted against advancing the nomination of Cornelia Pillard to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Senators decided not to hold a final vote on Pillard’s nomination, who is currently a law professor at Georgetown, in large part due to several of her writings which were heavily criticized during her confirmation hearings. She argues abstinence-only education in school is unconstitutional and condemns beliefs that sex should be reserved for marriage.

She also wrote that opponents of abortion are automatically anti-woman and criticizes ultra-sound technology for giving women “deceptive images” that their unborn child is a person. Relevant to the public debate on Obamacare, Pillard also says that all insurance policies should be required to provide birth control and thereby save women from being treated as “presumptive breeders.”

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) attempted to invoke cloture on Pillard, who is President Barack Obama’s fourth nominee to the D.C. Circuit, considered the second most powerful court in America. As Breitbart News has previously reported, the Senate has previously approved the nominations of Sri Srinivasan to that appeals court but declined to hold a final vote on the nominations of Caitlin Halligan and Patricia Millet.

It takes 60 votes to invoke cloture in the Senate to end debate and move to a final vote. The vote on Pillard failed 56-41.

The Senate is expected next week to take up Obama’s final D.C. Circuit nominee, that of Robert Wilkins.

This is the latest episode in President Obama’s admitted agenda of “remaking the courts.”

Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.