Deborah Ross Calls on Sen. Burr to Keep His Word and Do His Job After He Vowed to Block Nomination to Federal Court Seat

Press Release

Deborah Ross, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, released the following statement after incumbent Senator Richard Burr vowed to block the nomination of Patricia Timmons-Goodson, a former state Supreme Court justice and vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to the U.S. Easter District of North Carolina.

"Richard Burr's refusal to do his job and finally fill a decade-long vacancy on U.S. Eastern District of North Carolina federal district court is a perfect example of everything that's wrong with Washington," said Deborah. "Patricia Timmons-Goodson has been elected statewide by the people of North Carolina two separate times and has had a long and accomplished career as a judge, yet Senator Burr is rejecting her nomination without so much as a hearing or meeting. Senator Burr swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution and that includes considering judicial nominees. Now North Carolinians expect him to honor that oath and do the job we're paying him to do."

While Senator Burr is now obstructing multiple nominees, in typical Washington-flip-flop style, he has previously supported the Senate voting on judicial nominees under a Republican president. In 2005 during a Republican administration, Burr was a strong proponent of the Senate voting on judicial nominations, saying that "denying judicial nominees of both parties, who seek to serve their country, an up-or-down vote, simply is not fair." He even went so far as to call this kind of obstruction "an injustice to the American people."

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