caroline fredrickson, president of the american constitution society for law and policy; and carrie severinoief counsel and policy director of the judicial crisis network. welcome to you both. caroline fredrickson, why the impasse? >> well, you know, i think what has happened is there that there's been a complete breakdown in the process and that the republicans are unfortunately engaging in an extreme amount of obstructionism. they've decided that even though these are vacancies that exist on the d.c. circuit and have been long-standing on the second-highest -- second most important court in the land, they've decided that president obama doesn't get to appoint nominees to fill these vacancies and they want to leave them unfilled until there's another president. >> ifill: carrie severino? purely partisan? >> the vacancies in part are there because qualified nominees were blocked by the democrats for years before going -- >> ifill: a president bush nominee. >> a president bush nominee and senate democrats were talking about the fact that the d.c. circuit has a very low caseload. it's dead lac