Washington ? The Senate confirmed two federal judges from Texas Thursday amid a weeklong skirmish between Republicans and Democrats over which party has been most wronged in a judicial confirmation process.

While President Bush summoned Senate Republicans to the White House to turn up the heat on the Democrat-controlled Senate to act on his judicial picks, Democrats aired their own gripes at a hearing showcasing GOP inaction on Clinton-era nominees among them a pair of Texas appellate court candidates.

“America is not getting the justice it needs,” Bush said, complaining of a vacancy crisis.

Bush trained much of his criticism on Senate Democrats for refusing to act on eight of the 11 candidates he nominated exactly a year ago for seats on appellate courts just one rung below the Supreme Court. “This is a bad record,” he said, blaming “raw politics.”

Democrats countered that their record, during less than one year of control of the Senate, is better than that compiled by Republicans during the Clinton administration. More than 50 Clinton nominations foundered without receiving even a hearing under Republicans, they noted.

“The surge in vacancies created on the Republicans’ watch is being cleaned up under Democratic leadership in the Senate,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday. “Through a variety of good-faith steps that Senate Democrats have taken, the judicial nominations process today is markedly faster and fairer than it has been.”

At a hearing pointedly called “Ghosts of Nominations Past,” Judiciary Democrats listened Thursday to four Clinton nominees whose appellate court candidacies died after Republicans refused to schedule votes. Jorge Rangel of Corpus Christi and Enrique Moreno of El Paso, nominated for the 5th Circuit, testified that they never were told why they were not given hearings.

“Even with the passage of time, I find it difficult to reconcile my experience in the confirmation process with the basic notions of fair play, justice and due process that have guided me in my career,” Rangel said.

The White House has acknowledged that Republicans are not blameless. Spokesman Ari Fleischer called on everyone to “rise above the practice that both parties have engaged in over the last 10 to 15, 20 years.”

Briefly setting aside the finger-pointing, the Senate unanimously confirmed four district court judges Thursday, including Leonard E. Davis for the Eastern District of Texas and Andrew S. Hanen for the Southern District of Texas.

With those four, the Senate has confirmed 56 of Bush’s 99 judicial nominees a pace Democrats said far exceeds what the GOP-led Senate accorded President Bill Clinton.