WASHINGTON, D.C. (WTAQ) - Law professors from around the country are slamming Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.

That’s because he’s holding up the nomination of one of their own – Victoria Nourse to the federal appeals court in Chicago.

Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, has not scheduled a hearing on Nourse’s nomination because of Johnson’s opposition. Over 50 law professors asked Leahy to schedule the hearing anyway. They say it’s wrong for one man to hold up such a major judicial appointment.

Nourse has been with the UW Law School in Madison for 17 years – and she has worked on Capitol Hill with the Senate judiciary panel, and a committee that investigate the Iran-Contra guns-for-hostages affair in the 1980’s.

President Obama nominated Nourse last year, after a state selection panel endorsed her on her merits. She was picked to replace Terrence Evans on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Johnson has said her nomination should be null-and-void since they weren’t made in the current year – and he said nobody in Wisconsin’s legal community knows much about Nourse.

Despite her service at the UW, Johnson said Nourse has “very little connection” to the Badger State.