Ridiculous. Nobody seems to care about the litigants who are stuck waiting for their cases to be decided because none of the appellate courts have all of their judges.

Four vacancies on Pennsylvania’s appellate courts, including one on the Supreme Court, will remain unfilled for now, stuck in a partisan dispute.

The Senate’s majority Republicans on Wednesday defied Gov. Ed Rendell and the Supreme Court’s chief justice, Ronald D. Castille, and rejected four men nominated by Rendell to temporarily fill the openings.

Twenty-four senators, three of them Republicans, voted in favor of the nominations, while 26, all Republicans, voted against. A two-thirds majority vote is necessary to confirm a judicial nominee.

The Democratic governor has insisted that the nominees , James Gardner Colins, James Fitzgerald, Robert Daniels and Ken Gormley , are highly qualified. Castille, a Republican, also endorsed the candidates and warned that the lengthening vacancies are hindering the court’s work, as well as the public’s access to justice.

Rendell had intended all four nominees, with Senate confirmation, to serve until 2010, when permanent successors elected in 2009 are sworn in for 10-year terms. A spokesman for Rendell said it is difficult to say what the governor will do next, given the rejection of four nominees whose qualifications were undisputed.

“This is just another example of the Senate Republicans putting their narrow political interests ahead of the interests of the people of Pennsylvania,” Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County, said Rendell ignored established practice and his constitutional duty when he did not take the advice of the Senate GOP on whom to nominate.

“The governor has chosen to ignore the constitutional directive that he make judicial nominations with the advice and consent of the Senate,” Pileggi said in comments on the Senate floor.

The Senate’s Democratic whip, Michael O’Pake of Berks County, said Republicans were upending a decision that should be based on the nominees’ qualifications, not political purposes.

“Voting them down today would be just another example of the usual from Harrisburg, which is not what people want or expect from us,” O’Pake told colleagues on the Senate floor. He added that the Senate GOP’s interpretation of the constitution is “a historic misrepresentation of the language and intent of the provision.”

Pileggi also repeated the Republican complaint that Rendell missed a chance to add racial, gender and geographic diversity to the appellate bench. All four of Rendell’s picks are white men, three from Philadelphia and one from Pittsburgh. However, the Rendell administration countered that Senate Republicans had only pressed white men for the jobs, too.

Castille essentially agreed with Rendell, dismissing the notion that court appointments are supposed to be representative.

“The concerns expressed by the senators are more appropriately addressed when selecting candidates for election, not when filling short-term vacancies,” Castille wrote in an April 23 letter to top Senate Republicans.

There is one opening on the Supreme Court, two on Superior Court and one on Commonwealth Court, which typically handles cases involving government.

Castille said the Supreme Court vacancy could create 3-3 deadlocks, preventing final decisions in some cases, and gives appellants less of a chance that at least three justices will vote to take up their case.

Rendell had tapped Colins , a pal from college, Democrat from Philadelphia and former Commonwealth Court president judge , to serve on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; Fitzgerald and Daniels, two Philadelphia Republicans, to Superior Court; and Gormley, a Democrat from Pittsburgh, to Commonwealth Court.

Gormley, a professor at the Duquesne University Law School, is the only of the four without state appellate court experience.

All 21 Democrats voted in favor of the nominees, along with Republican Sens. Stewart Greenleaf of Montgomery County, John Eichelberger of Blair County and Jeffrey Piccola of Dauphin County.