(CN) - Senate Republicans on Friday blocked confirmation votes on three of President Obama's nominees to the Federal Court in San Francisco, which has three vacancies among its 14 judgeships.
The president nominated Vince Chhabria, a deputy city attorney in San Francisco; San Mateo County Judge Beth Freeman; and James Donato, an attorney in private practice, who was president of the San Francisco Bar Association in 2008.
Obama is expected to renominate them in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended the three for confirmation, along with six other nominees. But Republicans, sore at the Senate's change in filibuster rules, exacted revenge by holding up the confirmation votes.
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