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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be back to prioritizing President Trump’s judicial nominations when the Senate returns to Washington on Monday. A Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for a controversial judicial pick has been slated for Tuesday, according to NBC News, which will be one of the first things senators tackle when work resumes. House Democrats announced Tuesday that they will no longer come back to D.C. on May 4, due to health concerns expressed by the Attending Physician of the United States Congress. “There was a risk to members that he would not recommend taking,” said House Majority...

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 191 judges confirmed. 138 District Court judges 51 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 191 judges confirmed. 138 District Court judges 51 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices This week a judge on the DC Circuit announced his retirement and the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out several judicial nominations to the floor.

John Charles Hinderaker, of Arizona, to be United States District Judge for the District of Arizona. Mark C. Scarsi, of California, to be United States District Judge for the Central District of California. Stanley Blumenfeld, of California, to be United States District Judge for the Central District of California.Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha, of California, to be United States District Judge for the Central District of California. Grace Karaffa Obermann, of Virginia, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims for a term of fifteen years.

Judge Thomas Griffith on Thursday announced plans to retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, handing President Trump his third vacancy on the influential bench. Griffith is set to retire in September, just two months ahead of the 2020 election, as politics intensify the focus on Trump's conservative makeover of the federal courts. The judge, a George W. Bush appointee and 15-year veteran of the D.C. Circuit, made headlines last week when he ruled against House Democratic lawmakers who sought to enforce a subpoena against a former Trump aide. In a 2-1 opinion, Griffith ruled that...

While most of us are focused on the presidential election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is focused on filling judicial vacancies. McConnell appeared on Hugh Hewitt's radio show on Tuesday, and the first thing they discussed was judicial vacancies. "I’ve got the classic question: What have you done for me lately?" Hewitt asked, before answering himself. "You’ve actually saved the Constitution with 50 Appeals Court judges, two Supreme Court justices, 133 district court judges." Both acknowledged that despite the impressive record of getting judges confirmed, there's still a lot of work to be done. "I know that there are a...

With the weeks-long impeachment trial ending Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is wasting no time turning the chamber's focus back to his self-professed top priority: confirming judicial nominations. McConnell teed up five judicial nominations for votes on the Senate floor as the chamber wrapped up its work for the week. The Senate is expected to take its first procedural vote on the slate Monday evening, when Republicans will need a simple majority to end the debate on Andrew Brasher's nomination to be a judge on the Eleventh Circuit. Once Brasher is confirmed, the Senate will turn to the...

President Trump’s nominations to the federal courts have flipped three circuits making them majority Republican-appointed, lowered the age of GOP-appointed judges by 14 years, and reshaped the judiciary for decades to come, according to a series of new reports. When Trump took office in January 2017, only four of the 13 U.S. appeals courts had a majority of Republican-appointed judges. Today, seven of the 13 appeals courts do. This year alone, the Second, Third and 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have flipped from majority Democratic-nominated to majority Republican-nominated, according to Law.com. All total, 187 Trump-appointed federal judges have been...

In early November, during the impeachment inquiry against him, President Donald Trump threw a celebration in the East Room of the White House. The guests: a group of Senate Republicans and Leonard Leo, head of The Federalist Society. The occasion: President Trump’s appointing 44 federal appeals court judges – about one-quarter of the entire appeals court bench. The Trump administration and Senate Republicans – along with The Federalist Society, the conservative legal group tasked by the administration with identifying and vetting reliably conservative nominees – have over the past three years developed a pipeline of relentless efficiency for lifetime judicial...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump clinched their 50th circuit court judge in just three years on Wednesday, only five short of President Barack Obama’s record over an eight-year period. And McConnell isn’t done yet. Now that he’s filled virtually every vacancy in the powerful appellate court system, the Senate majority leader will try and cram through 18 lower-level lifetime judges next week, some of them supported by Democrats. “Whatever’s on the calendar, I’m going to make every effort I can to clear them all,” McConnell said in an interview. “We’ve already… finished up the circuits. So...

While Democrats in Congress have been conducting impeachment hearings in recent weeks, President Trump has been filling judicial vacancies in the federal court system at a rapid clip – and that appears to have potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden worried. “Look at how the federal court system is changing,” Biden told a group in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, according to a reporter for ABC News. “Four more years of the same kind of appointments, you’re going to see a court system that is fundamentally, for two generations, locked in a way that’s a death grip that does not make...

President Donald Trump’s nominee for a federal appeals court is in jeopardy following a conservative revolt from two Republican senators who have said publicly they won’t support him. Trump nominated federal judge Halil “Sul” Ozerden of Mississippi to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June. The New Orleans-based court handles cases from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The Senate Judiciary Committee says it removed Ozerden from a planned vote Thursday at the request of the White House. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (Alabama, Florida and Georgia) currently has 12 active judges after the appointment of 3 already this term by President Trump; the Circuit is now tied 6 - 6 with R and D appointees; with 3 more vacancies to fill; each of which has a current nominee awaiting vetting and a vote. The tie-breaking 13th judge will be under active consideration for a cloture vote this afternoon on the Senate floor with likely confirmation tomorrow; making in 7R to 6D. Once the additional two vacancies are filled; an enduring 9R to 6D majority will be...

This will be a weekly post. Count is now 155 judges confirmed. 110 District Court judges 43 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices The Senate Judiciary committee voted out two Circuit nominees to the floor this week, one for the 2nd and one for the 9th.

WASHINGTON (CN) – President Donald Trump announced six new judicial nominees on Friday, including two to seats on the once reliably liberal Ninth Circuit and four to federal courts in California. One of the nominees to the Ninth Circuit will be familiar to senators, as Trump has now three times chosen Patrick Bumatay for a federal judgeship. Trump first chose Bumatay, a prosecutor in the Southern District of California, for a seat on the Ninth Circuit in 2018, but the Senate never took action on the nomination. Trump tapped him for a judgeship again earlier this year, this time for...

President Donald J. Trump announced Thursday afternoon his intention to nominate two of Florida's newest Supreme Court justices, Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck, to serve as circuit judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. In so doing, the president likely will reshape the ideological bent of the 11th Circuit. Florida attorneys close to both the high court and appeals court are already buzzing over the appointments. They say Lagoa and Luck will give a reliable 7-5 constitutionalist/textualist majority to the 11th Circuit, which represents Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The two Florida justices will replace Judge...

Sen. Ted Cruz will oppose President Donald Trump’s nominee for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Halil Suleyman “Sul” Ozerden, a major setback for the embattled nomination. Cruz (R-Texas) has informed the White House and colleagues this week that he will oppose Ozerden, according to three people familiar with the Judiciary Committee’s internal dynamics. That conservative opposition places in doubt the future of Ozerden, who is a close friend of acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and whose nomination Mulvaney pushed over the objections of the White House Counsel's office.

President Donald J. Trump nominated twelve new federal judges Wednesday, including a new federal district judge in Hartford and a new state judge for the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Trump chose William J. Nardini, 50, a senior assistant U.S. Attorney in New Haven for a seat as one of two Connecticut jurists on the influential, Manhattan-based circuit court that takes appeals from Connecticut, New York and Vermont. Nardini, if his nomination is approved by the U.S. senate, will replace retiring circuit court Judge Christopher Droney, who disclosed earlier this week that he is taking a...

The White House announced Wednesday afternoon President Trump has nominated a number of additional judges to sit on the federal bench. Here is the list: -Steven J. Menashi of New York, to serve as Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit -Jodi W. Dishman of Oklahoma, to serve as Judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma -Karen S. Marston of Pennsylvania, to serve as Judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania -Richard E. Myers II of North Carolina, to serve as Judge on...

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed nine more of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees to the federal bench. The judicial confirmations come as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for the Senate to confirm 19 judges before it leaves Washington for a monthlong recess at the end of this week. The latest package of nominees also signals the Republican-controlled Senate is now turning its attention to the confirmation of district judges, after initially focusing on filling circuit court vacancies.