Courant Staff Writer Edmund H. Mahony reports:
Republicans on the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee have asked for another week to consider the almost certain appointment of Hartford District Judge Christopher F. Droney to the federal appeals court.In a routine move, the committee's Republican minority asked to reschedule from Thursday to next week a vote to send Droney and four other presidential nominees to the federal bench to the full U.S. Senate for confirmation.
The others are Robert D. Mariani, to be district judge for the middle district of Pennsylvania; Cathy Bissoon, to be district judge for the western district of Pennsylvania; Mark R. Hornak, to be district judge for the western district of Pennsylvania and Robert N. Scola, Jr. to be district judge for the southern district of Florida.
Droney, a federal judge in Connecticut for 14 years and the state's U.S. attorney for four years before that, was received warmly by senators of both parties when he was introduced to the committee a month ago.
He was recommended to President Obama by U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Ct. Droney's brother, former Democratic State Chairman John Droney, helped organize Lieberman's upset U.S. Senate campaign against then-Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who later was governor of Connecticut.
Connecticut's newly elected junior senator, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, is a committee member.
Obama has nominated Droney to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, one of the country's most important courts. It has jurisdiction over Connecticut, New York and Vermont, and members regularly appear on sort lists for U.S. Supreme Court vacancies.