Watch the Federal Judges
Trump White House reaches a disturbing milestone on confirmed federal judge appointments ... and few seem to care about it
Publisher’s Riff
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There was little noise over the fact that President Trump reached a very significant and very disturbing milestone this week: 200 federal judgeship appointments confirmed by the Senate (Republican-led) in less than one full term. This means that the federal judiciary is abundantly supplied with life-time federal judges who are largely anti-civil rights, not at all friendly to even widely accepted norms on everything from labor rights to the state of the environment, and - in many cases - highly questionable in terms of their professional legal acumen. For the most part, many have been characterized as extensions of White House cronyism.
The consequences of this are far-reaching and dangerous, particularly when we consider that the average median age of Trump judicial appointments is the youngest out of all presidents since Kennedy: 48.2 years of age. Which means these judges will be poisoning, misinterpreting and distorting the Constitution for many years. Because the federal judiciary is one of the key, independent branches of government in which, unlike the Executive and Legislative branches, the participants are not elected by voters (but appointed by partisans), the impacts of this are potentially devastating and regressive for historically vulnerable and marginalized non-White communities. “Following Number 200, when we depart this chamber today, there will not be a single circuit court vacancy anywhere in the nation for the first time in at least 40 years,” an elated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the New York Times. “It’s a victory for the rule of law and for the Constitution itself.” Who, specifically, benefits from that?
Keep in mind: there are a total of 1,803 federal judgeships in the United States spread out over 209 federal courts. Of that number, 874 judgeships are 1) appointed by the president and 2) serve life-time terms. That means nearly half of all judgeships are appointed by a president.
With the Senate confirming 200 Trump appointments, that means …
Trump-appointed judges now represent 11 percent of the entire federal judiciary
Trump-appointed judges also represent 23 percent of all presidentially-appointed federal judgeships (that’s nearly a quarter), and as Axois reported …
“The landmark achieves a Republican goal of filling every appeals court opening by the end of the year.”
These numbers are both startling and troubling. They are also irreversible as lifetime appointments since the impeachment of federal judges is not a common thing. Even if President Trump were not re-elected in November, the footprint of his legacy would far outstrip the length of his term for decades. It’s an issue that Democrats have failed to capture any public momentum on. Progressives have not, at all, been able to moblize voters around this - despite the crucial role the federal judiciary plays in every facet of our lives - and the broader public discourse is not paying any attention to it since there’s no hashtaggable or viral movement around it. Republicans, however, are always able to politically capitalize on it and have been able to mobilize their base on the promise of federal judicial appointments. Yet, it is perhaps the most dangerous public policy crisis of our time.
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