Senate Republicans used every trick in the parliamentary playbook—and invented a few new ones—to keep President Barack Obama from appointing federal judges. Progressive critics of Obama will note that he was also slow to nominate them, but the lion's share of the blame for the judicial crisis across the country rests on Mitch McConnell and crew. That's all changed, though, with popular vote loser Donald Trump in office. Here's their chance to pack the courts with ideologues, in the mold of new Supreme Court associate justice Neil Gorsuch. The rule change they pushed through to secure his confirmation means that they can go hog wild on conservative activist judges.
The Republicans’ opportunity comes with the GOP in control of Congress and the White House, about 120 vacancies in federal district and appeals courts to be filled and after years of partisan fights over judicial nominations.
“The Trump administration does have an opportunity to really put its mark on the future of the federal judiciary,” says Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society and an adviser to Trump on the Gorsuch nomination.
Reflecting a conservative judicial philosophy, Leo says the unusual number of vacancies that Trump is inheriting could reorient the courts of appeals, in particular, “in a way that better reflects the traditional judicial role, which is interpreting the law according to its text and placing a premium on the Constitution’s limits on government power.” […]
There are currently 20 vacancies in the federal appeals courts, which are one step below the Supreme Court, and roughly 100 more in district courts, where cases are originally tried. Former President Barack Obama had around half that number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. Of the current vacancies, 49 are considered judicial emergencies, a designation based on how many court filings are in the district and how long the seat has been open.
So far, Trump has only put one nomination for the lower courts forward. He's nominated an old friend of McConnell's, Amul R. Thapar, to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. There's not a great deal Democrats can do, other than slow-walk every nominee that comes forward.
The best hope for avoiding a radical right-wing judiciary for the interim, though, is Trump himself. He's been extremely slow to put candidates forward for the hundreds of key executive positions that require Senate confirmation. Out of 554 of those jobs, 475 have no candidate. Maybe Trump will be as slow in finding judicial candidates.