There were 18 appellate court vacancies when the nuclear option was invoked, many of which had existed for years. Now, there are only 10. The main hold-up in filling some of the others is a separate issue — the Senate's "blue-slip" tradition of deference to the senators from the nominees' states. "Except for those judicial nominees with Republican home state senators, by and large it's no longer a hurdle to get judges confirmed," Binder says. Indeed, no judicial nominee that's reached the floor since the rules change has been blocked.
2) Every judge is now being filibustered by Republicans
There's a cost to these confirmations — Republicans have responded to the rules change by filibustering every single judicial nominee. Though these filibusters can be beaten with 51 votes, Senate rules require several hours of floor time to be used for that. "Many fewer nominations go through by unanimous consent," Robert Dove, the former Senate parliamentarian told me. "Senate Republicans are determined to make Senator Reid pay for what he did, and they do that by simply dragging out the process." And many of these nominees are completely uncontroversial, and are later confirmed unanimously or nearly so — but they're filibustered anyway.
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