“Some see these nominees as an effort to pack the court after a series of decisions Obama did not like.”
I didn’t know they want 3 additional judges, I thought it was just replacements. This story is getting more horrific.
It is filling vacancies. The republicans position has benn for a while, that the judgeship positions should be transferred to appellate courts with higher workloads - the DC court having about a quarter the workload per judge as some of the other appeals courts, even with these vacancies.
Hence the conclusion that Obama is just trying to pack the court - especially since the impetus to get judges seated appears to correlate with his losing rulings.