Obama re-nominates 2 of my Wisconsin Law School colleagues to the federal bench.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

President Barack Obama isn't giving up in his attempt to hand a federal judgeship to former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.

Attempt to hand — that's a weird way to put it. The President has the appointment power. There's no way to get federal judges other than by having the President "attempt to hand" out the positions.

For the third time, Obama has sent Butler's name to the U.S. Senate as his nominee to become a federal judge for Wisconsin's Western District, based in Madison, the White House announced Wednesday....

Also renominated Wednesday was Victoria Nourse, a UW law professor the president has tapped for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Nourse would replace Judge Terence Evans, who has moved to senior status.

And here's the Wall Street Journal on the confirmation issue:

Expect little change in the partisan grudge match over court picks, which Chief Justice John Roberts decried as a "recurring problem" in his year-end report Friday. Democrats will continue to control the Senate, which confirms federal judges. In the last Congress, however, judicial nominations were low on Democrats' priority list, disappointing liberal activists who felt the ex-law professor in the White House and his filibuster-resistant Senate majority squandered an opportunity to reshape the federal judiciary.

In contrast, Republicans long have made molding the courts a top objective. As they did in the last Congress, Republicans likely will make up in energy what they lack in numbers, using parliamentary privileges to slow or block Obama nominees.