Sunday, January 31, 2021

February 2021 Judiciary News

Leave every vacancy unfilled.

Nominations, Hearings, Confirmations:

Biden:  Law360 has a list of possible Biden appeals court nominees.  Many are district judges appointed by Obama, and several were previously rejected by senate Rs.

Biden:  Ed Whelan outlines three questions about Biden judicial nominees.  Will another Supreme Court vacancy arise?  Will many new vacancies open up on the federal appellate courts?  Will the Biden White House make nominations expeditiously?

Retirements:  Harsh Voruganti of the Vetting Room lists all appeals court judges who are currently eligible for senior status now or in the near future.

Renominations:  Harsh Voruganti lists all recent cases of a president renominating an unconfirmed nominee of a predecessor.  It is likely that some previous Trump and Obama nominees will be nominated by President Biden.

First nominations:  Harsh Voruganti discusses how quickly (or slowly) new presidents submit their first judicial nominees.

Court packing:  Ilya Somin argues that President Biden's commission on judicial reform is unlikely to support court packing.  Bob Bauer, the chairman of the commission, previously wrote an article opposing court packing.

Judiciary Committee:  The Senate Judiciary Committee has not yet organized itself for this session.  It currently has 12 Rs and 9 Ds.  It will presumably have equal numbers of Rs and Ds, but it is unknown whether any Rs will have to give up their seats.

Garland:  President Biden announced that judge Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit is his nominee for Attorney General.  Garland was nominated to the DC Circuit by Clinton in 1997, and Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court in 2016, but the R senate did not give him a hearing.  Garland was only nominated after the Georgia runoffs.  Some progressive groups want the senate to have hearings for Biden judicial nominees first, even though there are no Biden judicial nominees yet.

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings:
TBD

The Federal Judiciary:

Breyer:  Justice Stephen Breyer is getting pressure from the left to step down so that President Biden can appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court.

Trump judges:  Reuters gives an overview of the impact that Trump appointees are having on the judiciary.

Federalist Society:  The Federalist Society is debating what to do in the wake of the Capital riot.  David Lat argues that it should take steps to separate itself from partisan politics.

Many judges have announced that they are taking senior status, mostly liberals who were waiting for president Biden's inauguration.  Only two are circuit court judges so far.
ED-NY: Roslynn Mauskopf (W) 2/1 (uscourts director)
ED-MI: Victoria Roberts (Clinton) 2/24 (senior)
2nd Circuit: Robert Katzmann (Clinton) 2/21 (senior)
ND-CA: William Alsup (Clinton) 1/21 (senior)
D-ID: B. Lynn Winmill (Clinton) 8/16 (senior)
D-MD: Hollander (Obama) TBD (senior)
D-MD: Blake (Clinton) 4/2 (senior)
SD-TX: Gilmore (Clinton) 1/2/22 (retire)
ND-OH: Polster 1/31 (senior)
ND-CA: Hamilton (Clinton) 2/1 (senior)
ND-CA: White (W) 2/1 (senior)
D-OR: Mosman (W) 12/27 (senior)
SD-FL: Ursula Ungaro (HW) 5/1 (senior)
D-SD: D. Viken (Obama) 10/01 (senior)
SD-CA: A. Battaglia (Obama) 3/31 (senior)
ED-WA: R. Peterson (Obama) 10/1 (senior)
10th Circuit: Carlos Lucero (Clinton) 2/1 (senior)
ND-OH: James Gwin (Clinton) 2/1 (senior)
2nd Circuit: Denny Chin (Obama) 6/1 (senior)
ED-PA: Timothy Savage (W) 3/1 (senior)

State Supreme Courts:

Gerrymandering:  Billy Corriher observes that house Ds have a majority thanks to D gerrymanders imposed by courts in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Alaska:  The Alaska Judicial Council released the names of the seven applicants for a seat on the Alaska Supreme Court.  Three of them, Superior Court Judges Dani Crosby, Jennifer Stuart Henderson and Yvonne Lamoureux, were finalists for the previous vacancy.

New Hampshire:  Governor Chris Sununu appointed Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, age 60, to be the next Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.  The Hampshire Supreme Court has 2 D and 2 R appointees, with one seat vacant for over one year.  Former Justice Robert Lynn retired on August 23, 2019, as he was age-limited.  Governor Chris Sununu nominated MacDonald in 2019, but the state Executive Council, with a 3-2 D majority, blocked the nomination.  The council, which now has a 4-1 R majority, confirmed MacDonald on January 22.

Oklahoma:  Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Tom Colbert will retire on February 1.  He was appointed by D governor Brad Henry in 2004.  Gov. Kevin Stitt will appoint a successor from applicants screened by the Judicial Nominating Commission.  This will be his third appointment.  The court has 5 D and 4 R judges, but only three conservatives.

South Carolina:  The legislature is considering adding two more justices to the five-member court.  Justices are appointed by the legislature after being screened by a panel.  The proposal would have to be approved by the voters.  The current chief justice, Donald Beatty, is a D appointed by the legislature in 2007.

Numbers and Trivia:

With the end of the Trump presidency, here are the final numbers of Trump-appointed judges.  He appointed 226 total article 3 judges.
3 Supreme Court justices
54 appeals court judges (net 53)
174 district court judges (net 170)
55 are women (24%)
37 are non-White (16%)

He also appointed the following judges to other courts.
3 Court of International Trade
10 Court of Federal Claims
7 Tax Court
6 Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
2 Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
1 Court of Military Commission Review

2021: January
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