The Senate confirmed President's Obama's first circuit court nominee to the bench today, voting 94-3 to send Gerard Lynch of New York to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Voting no were Republicans Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Oklahomans Tom Coburn and James M. Inhofe.

As was the case last week when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved two judicial nominees on the first try, Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., could not resist castigating Republicans for delaying judicial nominations.

Denny Chin, a federal District Court judge in Manhattan, is expected to be nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Chin would be the only Asian American judge on any Circuit Court, which has been the case since A. Wallace "Wally" Tashima, a judge on the Ninth Circuit, took senior status in 2004. As we noted in February, Asian American legal groups have been pressing the Obama administration to change that.

Obama has nominated three Asian Americans to seats on California District Courts: Edward Milton Chen, Dolly Gee and Jacqueline Nguyen.

In an uncharacteristic display of goodwill, two judicial nominees advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday on the first day on which they appeared on the agenda.

The committee approved the nominations of Beverly B. Martin of Georgia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and Jeffrey L. Viken to be a district judge for the District of South Dakota. Viken is the first of President Obama's District Court nominees to advance out of the Judiciary Committee. As Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the panel's ranking Republican, noted, nominations are almost always held over for a week rather than being approved on the first try.

Martin, a district Judge in Georgia nominated by President Clinton in 2000, was previously an assistant U.S. attorney and the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. Viken is currently the federal public defender for North Dakota and South Dakota.

Justice John Paul Stevens has only hired one clerk for the Supreme Court term starting in October 2010, generating new speculation that he might be planning to retire next year.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the 89-year-old justice has hired one clerk for the October 2010 term rather than the full contingent of four.

Since justices give few public indications of their future plans, clerk hiring, which is done well in advance, is one of the only tea leaves to read. Retired justices are only entitled to one clerk.