The Enlightenment

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Welcome to The Judiciary at Noon! Take a break from work to get an update on the oft-neglected third branch of the United States government, the judicial branch.

The series covers any updates to the federal judiciary, including any new judges confirmed, any deaths, resignations, or retirements from the courts, and any new vacancies that have occurred. It includes political analysis and fun information about the United States judiciary at the very end. All information spans the previous week.

Confirmations

No judges were confirmed for the week of February 16 to 22, 2024.

Vacancies

No new vacancies occurred for the week of February 16 to 22, 2024. The number of federal judicial vacancies is 86, unchanged from a week ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

No judges retired, died, or resigned in the week of February 16 to 22, 2024.

Other

On February 21, Biden announces 5 new nominees to the federal judiciary. One judge was nominated to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, taking cases from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

The other 4 judges were nominated to Northern Illinois, the District of Arizona, and the Court for the District of Columbia.

Analysis

Very little to report on. It has been two weeks in a row with no vacancies and judges confirmed. Confirmation activity will resume on the 26th next week, when the Senate will begin considering nominees from Florida.

The only thing to discuss is the new round of judges Biden has nominated for the courts. This tells me that the Biden administration is feeling optimistic that it can confirm a lot of judges before the 2024 election.

I believe this optimism is unwarranted for two reasons. First, as I discussed in my last Judiciary at Noon post, there are at least 40 active judges eligible to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement where the judge stays on the court, but a vacancy opens up.

The fact that Clinton and Obama judges are not taking senior status suggests to me they do not think that Biden will be able to appoint judges to replace them, since they want a Democrat President appointing their replacement.

Second, with the Presidential election in full swing and a real possibility that Biden will lose in 2024, Republicans are increasingly refusing to grant permission to review nominees for their states under the blue slip tradition. This signals that Republicans can wait out vacancies until Trump wins.

Add on to this the fact that Democrat Senators in Republican states, like Ohio’s Sherrod Brown or Montana’s Jon Tester, are unwilling to vote for certain nominees to their states over fears of blowback.

But there is hope. Democrats have appointed more and more judges with each passing year. They appointed more judges in 2023 than in 2022 and more in 2022 than 2021.

They have nine months until the election. All they have to do is appoint 10 judges per month, and they’ll fill every vacancy before election day. Perhaps they’ll pull it off.

BONUS: Which judges have served the longest?

Federal judges serve a long time in their positions. Most judges serve for 20 or even 30 years in their role. The longest serving Supreme Court Justice was William Orville Douglas, Sr. He was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt, and served for almost 37 years.

7 judges currently serving on the federal judiciary have been there for over 50 years. The longest-serving of them all is 89-year-old Walter King Stapleton, Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, having served over 53 years.

Judge Joseph William Woodrough holds the record for longest judicial service. Between his service on the District of Nebraska and the 8th Circuit, he served a combined 61 years and 182 days on the federal bench.

SIGN-OFF

That’s it for this week’s The Judiciary at Noon. This has been Anthony Myrlados. I’ll see you next noon and until then I wish you all an enjoyable weekend!