Perhaps I’m preaching to the choir—most of the users here at DailyKos are both interested in seeing President Obama re-elected and are aware of how important any President’s judicial nominees are. However, I’ve noticed that most of the posters who are concerned with the judicial branch focus on just one federal court—the United States Supreme Court.
While it’s undoubtedly true that the Supreme Court reins, well, supreme over all other courts and has the final say on any matter brought before it, it’s foolish to think that just one court out of hundreds of United States federal court is the only court worth talking, thinking, or caring about.
First, a little background information about me and my relationship with the United States judiciary: I will openly admit that I am a judicial “nerd,” if such a term exists. I spent the Sunday following my high school’s homecoming in 2009 creating vast and expansive Excel spreadsheets that documented every single Article III judge in the United States—all 866 of them. It was an exhaustive and elaborate undertaking. These spreadsheets, which are separated into four worksheets—the United States Supreme Court, United States Courts of Appeals, United States District Courts, and Barack Obama judicial nominees—catalog the names of judges, by whom they were nominated, their year of birth, the year of their commission, when and if they served as Chief Justice, and how old they were upon being commissioned. In the worksheet cataloging current judicial nominees, I track the nominees, to what courts they were nominated, what date the Judiciary Committee approved their nomination, what date the assembled Senate voted on their nomination, what measure of vote it was, when they were commissioned, their year of birth, and their position upon nomination. In other words, I have no life. But there is minimal maintenance now that the template exists—all I have to do is create a vacancy slot when a judge retires, takes senior status, or dies or fill a vacancy slot when the Senate confirms a judge. I digress.
With 91 district courts—89 courts in 50 states plus the courts located in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, respectively—and 15 appellate courts with jurisdiction over a geographic area, the United States Supreme Court represents 0.93% of all Courts in the country, and the 9 justices sitting on it represent 1.03% of all commissioned federal judges, you can understand why my focus is on more than just the Supreme Court.
To further that thesis, I simply point to the fact that the Supreme Court does not grant a writ of certiorari to all cases before it—with only nine justices and hundreds of cases before it every year, the Supreme Court can’t hear every case. Therefore, oftentimes, they let the decisions of appellate courts stand unchallenged.
Second, the Supreme Court often looks to the rulings made by district and appellate courts in determining their own rulings—we heard that the majority on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote their ruling specifically to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy for a REASON.
Third, there are a surprising number of (young and fully able) justices on courts nowadays who were nominated by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and who are currently serving as chief judges on their courts! What I mean to say is that judicial appointments are long-lasting. Commissions on Article III courts end only by death, resignation, or removal from office by Congress. There are many judges who have been serving on the courts for 30-35 years who are still very active in their duties. But let’s prove it!
There are, as mentioned before, 91 justices serving on District Courts. Of these 91, Ronald Reagan-appointed Chief Judges account for 5.49% of the total, George H. W. Bush-appointed Chief Judges account for 17.58% of the total, Bill Clinton-appointed Chief Judges account for 39.56% of the total, George W. Bush-appointed Chief Judges account for 29.67% of the total, and Barack Obama-appointed Chief Judges account for 7.69% of the total. This has long-lasting impacts.
This is especially evident in two District Courts currently served by Reagan-appointed Chief Judges—Northern Texas and Southern Texas. In 2014 and 2016, respectively, the Chief Judgeship will pass from Reagan-appointed judges—Sidney Allen Fitzwater and Ricardo Hinojosa—to George H. W. Bush-appointed judges—Jorge Antonio Solis and Lee Hyman Rosenthal—which will give Republicans the Chief Judgeship on both of these courts until 2021 and 2023, even though George H. W. Bush will have been out of office for about thirty years! In the District Courts of Middle—where I live!—and Southern Florida, respectively, a similar phenomenon can be observed. In both those courts, George H. W. Bush-appointed Chief Judges—Anne C. Conway and Federico A. Moreno—will hand their gavels to fellow George H. W. Bush-appointed judges—Steven D. Merryday and Kevin Michael Moore—which will enable Bush-appointed judges to control those courts until 2020 and 2021, respectively!
But what enables these justices to stay on their respective courts for so long? Surely, there must be an explanation. There is. (But don’t call me Shirley.)
Republican Presidents, from the very small sample size that we are working with—we have three Republicans to compare to two Democrats—have a tendency to nominate younger individuals to serve on District Courts. Consider, for instance, that Sidney Allen Fitzwater and Ricardo Hinojosa, two current Chief Judges mentioned previously, were both nominated by President Reagan when they were both THIRTY-THREE years of age! Therefore, Judge Fitzwater is a spritely 59 years of age, despite having served on the District Court for the Northern District of Texas for nearly three decades. Fitzwater was likely helped by the fact that he graduated from the Baylor University School of Law at the relatively young age of 23, but when one considers that he went from graduating from law school to serving on a federal court in just 10 years, you get a real impression of just how incredible this was. Judge Hinojosa went from graduating from the Harvard Law School in 1975 to serving on a federal court in 1983—just 8 years! Robert Lowell Miller, Jr., also appointed by President Reagan, was commissioned at the slightly older (but still young!) age of 35 in 1985. In fact, this trend continues elsewhere—of the 28 currently-serving judges who were commissioned before they turned 40, just 5—17.24% of the total—were nominated by Presidents Clinton or Obama!
My ultimate point is this: Republican Presidents have already got the edge when it comes to judges who will be long-lasting—if you’re really inclined to put it to the test, just watch what a Romney Administration Justice Department (What a scary phrase!) would do in the realm of judicial appointments. Conservative scholars have been pent up for the length of President Obama’s term—and really the last two years of President Bush’s term—just waiting to be nominated or to recommend new nominees. And we need Democratic Presidents who can push strong, smart, intelligent, and eclectic—though not necessarily teenage—judicial nominees, so that there is a strong bench in case of a Supreme Court vacancy. Though President Obama has not moved with the alacrity that I had hoped, as his judicial confirmations in 2009 was nothing short of abysmal and disappointing, I have confidence that his second term will be better. The President has started to pick up the fight on judicial nominees, and Senator Reid has proven that, if given a list of nominees, he can fight Senator McConnell to make sure that they see the light of day with a full Senate vote. And that eventually leads to more judicial liberals balancing out judicial conservatives, so the process is enhanced!