On May 9, 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit. If confirmed, Estrada would have been the first Latino to serve on this court, but it was not to be.
At the time of Estrada's nomination, the Senate was split 50-50, leaving Vice President Dick Cheney as the tie-breaking vote. A few weeks later, Senator James Jeffords switched his party affiliation, handing Senate control to the Democrats, who refused to act on Estrada's nomination. As was revealed in leaked memoranda from Senate leadership and the Judiciary Committee, Senate Democrats feared confirming Estrada would set him up for a subsequent Supreme Court nomination and it would be too politically difficult to oppose the first Latino nominated to the High Court.
Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 2002 election, but Miguel Estrada would still not get confirmed. In March 2003, forty-four of the forty-nine Senators in the Democratic caucus voted against cloture, blocking full consideration of the nomination. There would be six more cloture votes on the Estrada nomination over the next six months, all of which failed. This marked the first time in our nation's history that a filibuster was used to block a judicial nomination that enjoyed majority support.
