Trump submits 10 names for federal court vacancies
Nominations in key circuits could revive conservative tilt
President Trump borrowed a page from George W. Bush’s playbook Monday by nominating 10 federal court judges en masse, almost 16 years to the day after Bush named 11 appeals court judges — including a Washington lawyer named John Roberts who soon became chief justice of the United States.
Trump’s action represents the opening salvo in what will be at least four years of battles with Senate Democrats over the federal judiciary, one that the president intends to pack with conservatives after President Barack Obama spent eight years tilting nearly every circuit court to the left.
It also elevates some rising legal stars who made it on to Trump’s original list of 21 potential Supreme Court justices last year, putting them closer to the nation’s high court at a time when Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote, is contemplating retirement and two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are long past the average retirement age.
Two judges from that list were among the 10 nominees named Monday. Joan Larsen, 48, a Michigan Supreme Court justice, was nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. David Stras, 42, a Minnesota Supreme Court justice, was nominated for the 8th Circuit. Previously, federal district court Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky, who also made Trump’s high court list, was nominated to the 6th Circuit.
Others named to federal appeals courts Monday were Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett, Kentucky lawyer John Bush and former Alabama solicitor general Kevin Newsom. Those named to district courts were Dabney Friedrich, Terry Moorer, David Nye and Scott Palk, while Damien Schiff was named to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Conservative legal activists applauded the new nominees, just as they had Trump’s selection in January of federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court seat vacated a year earlier by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch, 49, was confirmed last month.
“When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which spent millions of dollars to help win Gorsuch’s confirmation.
Combined with Thapar’s earlier nomination, Trump now has nominated six people to serve on federal appeals courts, the traditional stepping stones to the Supreme Court. That’s one-fourth of the total number of vacancies on those regional courts.
“The large number of judicial vacancies gives President Trump a historic opportunity to move the federal courts in the right direction — towards constitutionalism and away from judicial activism — in just four years,” said Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice.
It took Obama eight years to liberalize a majority of appeals courts. At the end of Bush’s presidency, 10 of the 13 circuits had a majority of judges nominated by Republicans. Today, nine have a majority of Democrats’ nominees. Trump can reverse that in one term, with GOP control of nine appeals courts, leaving three deadlocked.