Judicial Worry: Group Mobilizes to Prod Senate on Trump Judges

President Donald Trump has nominated 11 people to appeals court judgeships and another 23 people to district court positions. Yet there are more vacancies on the federal bench now than when he took office.

That fact has prompted the Judicial Crisis Network to spend $500,000 on a national online campaign, for the next two weeks, to pressure the Senate to speed up the pace of confirmations. Four other conservative organizations, the Tea Party Patriots, the Concerned Veterans for America, Concerned Women for America, and the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, are supporting the effort.

“We feel it’s very important to get these judges confirmed,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director at the Judicial Crisis Network.

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Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement that Trump has kept his promise to nominate well-qualified, principled men and women to served as federal judges at all levels.

“But pro-abortion Senators are bucking the will of the people and are blocking these highly qualified nominees, causing disruption in our judicial system,” she stated. “This obstructionism and abuse of Senate rules must end.”

The backlog of judicial vacancies continues to grow. Other than Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Senate has confirmed just four of the president’s nominees — three at the appellate level and one district judge.

Severino said the backlog now is a third bigger than when Trump took office. And that does not even count the 21 judges who have announced they will retire or take semi-retired “senior” status in the coming months.

“It’s really shocking,” she said.

The ad, titled “#GridlockReform,” begins by decrying the “hidden scandal” of obstruction by Democrats.

“Democrats will do anything to keep their liberal activist judges in charge,” an announcer says. “President Trump has kept his promise, nominating principled judges, believers in the Constitution.”

The ad ends with a call for voters to contact their senators and urge them to support a rules change pushed by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) that would shorten debate over presidential judicial nominees from 30 hours to eight or less. He noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month that if would take 11 years to fill all of the vacant appointed positions in the executive branch if the 30-hour rule were enforced for every nominee.

“That is making a farce of Senate procedure.”

Historically, Severino said, the Senate has waived non-controversial nominees to votes without protracted debate. But she said Democrats have been forcing 30 hours of debate on judicial nominees as a way to gum up the works and run out the clock. She said the most egregious example was David Nye, whom then-President Barack Obama nominated for a federal judgeship in Idaho. The Senate failed to take up the nomination, and Trump reappointed him earlier this year.

The Senate eventually voted 100-0 to confirm him — but not before minority Democrats forced Senate Republicans to debate the issue for 30 hours.

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“That is making a farce of Senate procedure,” she said.

The other rules abuse that Democrats have pursued is a tradition known as the “blue slip,” Severino said. It is designed to encourage the president to consult with the home-state senators on judicial nominees. The attorney said it is up to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman to interpret how much power individual senators have to block nominees.

Rather than allowing for a “one-man filibuster,” she said, the blue slip should be used to give senators a chance to weigh in on nominations affecting their states — but not to hold them up forever.

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Gage Skidmore, Flickr)