Posted on 07/25/2020 4:51:30 AM PDT by cotton1706
This will be a weekly post.
Count remains at 200 judges confirmed
2 Trade Court judges
143 District Court judges
53 Circuit Court judges
2 Supreme Court justices
This week the Senate was mostly working on legislation. However, they did confirm some appointments, including two judges to the Court of Appeals for Veteran's Claims. But these are Article I judges, not Article III judges.
This week the Senate voted for cloture for a District judge (vote Monday) and McConnell filed for cloture on another District judge.
So there will be judicial confirmations next week.
McConnell is going to have to really move to confirm all the judges in the nomination pipeline by Dec.
he needs Trump’s help in Kentucky this November
https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article214226584.html
This is a very good thing!
Reminder. There are NO judges to be confirmed.
Trump has confirmed a judge to EVERY open seat, save the 5-6 district courts in blue states where the senate for now still honors the “blue slip.”
This means, then, that one of the D senators withdrew the blue slip objection.
There actually aren’t that many vacancies left. For the first time in decades, there are no vacancies on any Court of Appeals.
Trump has yet to sign DACA amnesty. Lindsey Graham has to be paid.
The district courts have lots of openings.
There are 81 court openings with 51 nominees awaiting confirmation, 3 more openings have been announced for future dates. Forty one of the district court openings are Judicial emergencies. Openings have been in existence from 2013 & 2014 in one case each, with four from 2015 & eleven from 2016.
Six of those 81 court openings are in Federal Claims(all with nominees in place) and 2 are in International Trade (one nominee in place).
The remaining 73 and 3 pending openings are district courts (45 nominees pending).
Of those district court openings 22 are pending before Senate Judiciary Committee without hearing.
Six have had hearings held and still in Committee.
Seventeen have been reported out of Committee & are pending on Executive Calendar.
McConnell has committed to get all nominees on the slate through the process by the end of the year. At this point that is 51 confirmations, the majority district court.
There are open district court seats in 25 states.
https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies
Blue Slips operate in the Senate Judiciary committee not on the Senate floor.
On the Senate floor there are nominees from PA, LA, NY, CT, AZ, CA, VA, TN, NV, WI awaiting cloture. They have already been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Additionally multiple district & circuit courts seats have been filled without blue slips from their senators in the last 2 years.
https://ballotpedia.org/Blue_slip_(federal_judicial_nominations)
“A senator returning the blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee chair indicates that the senator has no issue with the nominee, in which case the committee chair will often take steps to initiate committee proceedings on the nomination. A senator withholding his or her blue slip, however, indicates that the nominee does not have the senator’s approval, in which case proceedings may be delayed indefinitely”
Grassley ignored the blue slip practice for both district and circuit.
Graham honors them for district but not circuit.
Assuming GOP keeps the Senate, Grassley will return as chair next year.
https://twitter.com/SenateCloakroom
Monday July 27th vote on William Scott Hardy to be
U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Thursday July 23rd - filed cloture on David Cleveland Joseph to be
U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana.
Then Ds withdrew blue slips in PA.
Maybe someone died in LA. But as of a month ago, Trump had filled and the senate had confirmed every fed opening where there were no blue slips.
Yes, you are right. My mistake.
I just found this useful resource page.
While I view the ABA with jaundiced eye this page contains a lot of information on the state of nomination progress that is not as thoroughly examined elsewhere.
Thanks!!
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