BTW, the Ninth Circuit had been notoriously liberal in the pre-Trump era. Trump got to appoint a ton of judges to those slots during a single term as POTUS (by my count, TEN judges appointed to that circuit from 2018-2020!) and supposedly one of his “accomplishments” during his tenure was “flipping the ninth circuit” and giving them a conservative majority so the ninth circuit was “no longer liberal”. I remember FReepers crowing about that “accomplishment” back in 2019:
Sounds like Trump’s lower court nominees were as “good” as his SCOTUS nominees.
But if it makes everyone feel better, let’s blame Bush!
(BTW, George W. Bush appointed a paltry 3 judges to the Ninth Circuit during his two terms as President)
I’d hold back until seeing the makeup of the panel that ruled on this.