"Lifetime appointments and the new, highly ideological stakes provided senators ample incentives to use holds and silent filibusters to prevent a majority of their colleagues from acting on judicial nominations, both to block those with different ideologies and to keep slots vacant until the presidency moves into their party’s hands. Along the way, judicial confirmations have become increasingly politicized, and delays in confirming appellate judges have led to increased vacancy rates that have produced longer case-processing times and growing caseloads per judge on federal dockets." -Mann, Thomas E. and Norman J. Ornstein, It’s Even Worse than it Looks, 2012 Which of the following statements best summarizes the authors’ argument?

a.) The Senate is more likely to place holds on life-tenured judicial appointments because of the lasting influence of those appointments
b.) Senate confirmation serves as a check on appointment powers

This is the statement that best describes the main idea of the text. In this passage, we learn of the attitudes that the Senate has when it comes to life-tenured judicial appointments. The author tells us that these appointments were considered incentives to use holds and filibusters in order to prevent action. This is most likely a consequence of the fact that senators recognize the lasting impact that such appointments can have.