Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
Robert L. Wilkins, left, with President Obama and other nominees in June, was picked to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday blocked President Obama's third consecutive nominee to the country's most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president's right to shape the judiciary.
T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
Democrats in Congress on Monday criticized the failure to confirm Mr. Obama's judicial nominees.
By a vote of 53 to 38, the Senate failed to break a filibuster of Robert L. Wilkins, a federal judge who was nominated to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, falling seven votes short of the 60 needed. Two Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with the Democrats.
The impasse over Mr. Wilkins followed Republican blockades of two other candidates for the court since Oct. 31. Unlike previous fights over judicial nominees, the dispute is not as much about the judges' individual political leanings as it is about the overall ideological makeup of the court. Republicans have raised few objections to the three candidates' qualifications or legal positions.
Rather, Republicans are seeking to prevent Mr. Obama from filling any of the three existing vacancies on the 11-seat court, fearing that he will alter its conservative tilt. The court has immense political importance because it often rules on questions involving White House and federal agency policy.
Democrats accused Republicans of exercising a nakedly political double standard for confirming presidential nominees.
"Appointing judges to fill vacant judicial seats is not court-packing," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said Monday. "It's a president's right as well as his duty."
After the vote, Mr. Obama issued a statement saying he was being held to an unfair standard. "Four of my predecessor's six nominees to the D.C. Circuit were confirmed," he said. "Four of my five nominees to this court have been obstructed."
Mr. Obama added, "The American people and our judicial system deserve better."
Republicans have argued that the court does not have a caseload large enough to merit filling the vacancies, and they have proposed legislation to shrink it by three seats. But that has no chance of becoming law in a Democratic-controlled Senate, so instead they have vowed to block any nominees for that court.
For one day at least, business on Capitol Hill shifted away from the problematic effort to carry out the president's health care law, prompting Republicans to accuse Democrats of trying to change the subject.
"Unfortunately, the Senate will not be voting on legislation to allow Americans to keep their health insurance if they like it," said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. "Rather, we will be voting on another nominee to a court that doesn't have enough work to do. The Senate ought to be spending its time dealing with a real crisis, not a manufactured one."
Republicans are making a bold gamble: Hold firm and allow no more judges to get through while hoping that Democrats do not alter filibuster rules so that the minority can no longer block judges. At times, they have dared Democrats to change the rules, saying that any move to stop filibusters will haunt them if the Senate and the White House ever flip back to Republican control and a seat opens on the Supreme Court.
Senate aides said Monday that members of the Democratic leadership had started to gauge support for a rules change inside its caucus. Any changes would require 51 of the 55 members aligned with Democrats.
Mr. Reid can bring the stalled nominees back up again at any time, individually or all at once.
Judge Wilkins became the fourth of Mr. Obama's choices for the District of Columbia court to be blocked by Republicans this year. Angry Democrats, noting that Judge Wilkins is African-American and that the three other nominees are women, said Republicans were stifling diversity.
Democrats have sought to portray Republicans as callous to the concerns of women and minorities.
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