President Trump will further cement his legacy on America’s courts as the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the nominee to fill the seat vacated by Amy Coney Barrett. The Committee will also vote to send three lower trial court nominees to the Senate. Democrats are up in arms that President Trump is continuing to make nominations during the lame-duck period of his presidency, a tradition typically followed by past presidents.
The Committee is set to vote on the nomination of Thomas L. Kirsch II to replace Barrett of the U.S 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. Kirsch currently serves as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana. On the same day the Committee will also vote on the nominations of Charles Edward Atchley Jr. and Katherine A. Crytzer to become judges for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Fox News reports:
There are only three current and known future vacancies on appeals courts, according to the Judicial Crisis Network, which monitors judicial nominations. Meanwhile, there are 59 current or known future vacancies on district and specialty courts, with 35 pending nominations.
“People focus less on district courts because they decide cases rather than make legal precedent,” Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, told Fox News. “But we have seen rogue district judges impose national injunctions during the Trump administration. They can make it difficult for a president and slow the administration of justice. What district courts do matter. A Trump-appointed district judge will be very different from a Biden-appointed district judge.”
In only one term President Trump has already managed to appoint more federal judges than recent presidents. The recent confirmations bring the total to 229 Trump appointed judges, three being Supreme Court Justices.
That’s compared to Presidents Barack Obama, who managed to get a total of 160 judicial nominees over two terms, George W. Bush, who got a total of 204 nominees confirmed in eight years, and Bill Clinton, who scored 203 judicial appointments over two terms. Also falling short of Trump’s single term — Obama, Clinton and Bush each appointed two Supreme Court justices.
“The most important thing Trump did in judicial nominations is break free from the traditional Republican method of picking jurists,” J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer, now president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told Fox News. “Trump picked conservatives who have battle scars and who have fought the fight. That’s what prevents us from getting another David Souter on the Supreme Court.”
