When the Senate returned from its spring recess last Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he had a slate of nominees to confirm last week and that the Senate would be staying to work until the full slate was confirmed. The result? For the first time since President Trump took office, two federal district-court nominees were confirmed via voice vote last Thursday. Prior to the current administration (and the unparalleled resistance we have witnessed in the Senate) uncontroversial district judges — and even sometimes circuit judges — were routinely confirmed by voice votes or through unanimous-consent agreements.
Yet, despite the two voice votes last week (and the confirmation of a third uncontroversial district judge earlier in the week by a nearly unanimous 96-1 margin), the Democratic minority still insisted on cloture votes for all three nominees, the only purpose of which was to waste precious Senate Floor time. Since Inauguration Day, the Senate minority has required 86 cloture votes on President Trump’s judicial and executive-branch nominees. By comparison, between 2009 and 2013, there were only twelve cloture votes held for President Obama’s nominees.
In an effort to address this unprecedented obstruction, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma has proposed to shorten post-cloture debate time from a maximum of 30 hours per nominee to eight hours for non-Cabinet level executive branch nominees and two hours to district-court nominees, similar to a bipartisan Senate agreement reached in 2013. Senator Lankford’s proposal continues to gain attention and interest, and I hope that it is soon enacted to address the growing backlog of judicial nominees on the Senate floor. In the meantime, I applaud Leader McConnell for working to counter the egregious resistance of the Democratic minority, and confirming President Trump’s outstanding judicial nominees.
Here is this week’s full update on federal judicial nominations:
Current and known future vacancies: 180
Courts of Appeals: 28
District/Specialty Courts*: 152
Pending nominees for current and known future vacancies: 73
Courts of Appeals: 13
District/Specialty Courts: 60
* Includes the Court of Federal Claims and the International Trade Court
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings
Nominee (Circuit) | Nomination Date | Days Pending | Both Blue Slips Returned? | Judiciary Committee Hearing Date |
Ryan Bounds (9th) | 9/7/2017 | 230 | No | Not yet scheduled |
Andrew Oldham (5th) | 2/15/2018 | 61 | Yes | Not yet scheduled |
Britt Grant (11th) | 4/12/2018 | 5 | No | Not yet scheduled |
David Porter (3rd) | 4/12/2018 | 5 | No | Not yet scheduled |
Paul Matey (3rd) | 4/12/2018 | 5 | No | Not yet scheduled |
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Votes
Nominee (Circuit) | Nomination Date | Days Pending | Judiciary Committee Hearing Date |
John Nalbandian (6th) | 1/24/2018 | 83 | 3/8/2018 |
Amy St. Eve (7th) | 2/15/2018 | 61 | 3/21/2018 |
Michael Scudder (7th) | 2/15/2018 | 61 | 3/21/2018 |
Mark Bennett (9th) | 2/15/2018 | 61 | 4/11/2018 |
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Floor Votes
Nominee (Circuit) | Nomination Date | Days Pending | Date Reported out of Senate Judiciary Committee |
Kyle Duncan (5th) | 10/2/2017 | 197 | 1/18/2018 |
Kurt Engelhardt (5th) | 10/5/2017 | 194 | 2/8/2018 |
Michael Brennan (7th) | 8/3/2017 | 257 | 2/15/2018 |
Joel Carson (10th) | 12/20/2017 | 118 | 2/14/2018 |
Nominees Awaiting Floor Votes: 31
Courts of Appeals: 4
District/Specialty Courts: 27
Nominees Confirmed by the Senate: 32
Supreme Court: 1
Courts of Appeals: 14
District/Specialty Courts: 17