The Enlightenment

Image courtesy of Sora Shimazaki/Pexels

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

• March 19: Nicole Gina Berner was confirmed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a court with jurisdiction over Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North and South Carolina.
• March 20: Edward Sunyol Kiel was confirmed to the District of New Jersey.
• March 20: Eumi Kim Lee was confirmed to the Northern District of California, with jurisdiction over cities like San Francisco and San Jose.

All three courts lean heavily liberal. With Kiel’s confirmation, all vacancies to the District of New Jersey have been filled.

Vacancies

No new vacancies occurred for the week of March 15 to 21, 2024. 76 vacancies remain on the federal judiciary, down from 79 a week ago.

Retirements, Deaths, and Resignations

No retirements, deaths, or resignations occurred on the federal judiciary for the week of March 15 to 21, 2024.

Other

• March 20: The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on 5 nominees; one to the 7th Circuit, with jurisdiction over the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, three to district courts in the states of Arizona and Illinois, and one to the district court of the District of Columbia.
• March 20: President Biden announced 5 new federal judicial nominees. One has been appointed to the 6th Circuit, with jurisdiction over the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. The other four have been nominated to district courts in Washington, Florida, New York, and Massachusetts. Two nominations were made to the District of Columbia Superior Court as well.

Analysis

Democrats have lit this week on fire. Aided by the lack of new vacancies, it appears Democrats are finally pouncing on the opportunity to fill the federal judiciary. 6 judges in two weeks is no small number, and it appears they plan to confirm a seventh one today.

As I have been urging for some time now, Biden has finally nominated new judges to keep up with Senate Democrats. Though some pressure has been relieved, Biden will need to start nominating judges even faster if he wants to keep up with this new pace.

If this rate continues, all current vacancies will be filled in less than 26 weeks, more than 3 weeks before the presidential election. But there are challenges on the horizon for this continued pace of confirmations.

For one, the number of vacancies in states with two Democratic senators is dwindling to zero. Due to the Democratic Party’s adherence to the blue slip tradition, Republican senators essentially have veto power over any nominees put forth by Biden that they don’t like, and they are stalling on top of that.

Furthermore, the confirmation votes for judges appears to be getting tighter and tighter. Judges Kiel and Lee were both confirmed this week by a 50-49 vote as Democratic Senator Joe Manchin crossed party lines to vote no.

A new brouhaha is ballooning into a minor media story as one of Biden’s nominees to the 3rd Circuit, Adeel Abdullah Mangi, is facing an intense opposition campaign from conservative law groups for his very distant connection to the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers Law School.

The Center has hosted very controversial discussions regarding Israel and Palestine, and has attracted ire over its ties to various Palestinian rights organizations, some of which have been alleged to be antisemitic or even in support of terrorism.

Mr. Mangi was not in charge of programming at the Center. He was a member of an advisory board that met once a year to advise the Center on academic matters.

Mangi, who is Muslim, was asked by Republicans during his nomination hearing on how he celebrated the 9/11 attacks and whether he condemned the October 7th Hamas attacks.

Following his hearing, Republicans were denounced as Islamophobic, and numerous organizations, including several prominent Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, issued statements of support for the Mangi nomination.

Nevertheless, it has been reported that should Mangi come up for a vote, he would not be confirmed. Though the Biden administration continues to advocate for the Mangi nomination, we may very well be looking at a sunken nominee. Democrats must ponder: will Mangi be the only one?

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.