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GoUBears's avatar

Now that senators are headed home for election season, here's an update without how things stand judicially:

There are six current+future circuit court vacancies: a liberal vacancy in NJ open since last June, four liberal vacancies on confirmation of successor, and a conservative vacancy opening in DE in January (Manchin has more or less retracted his 'nominees must have bipartisan support' ultimatum from earlier this year):

Julia Lipez (ME) should be confirmed without a fuss. Adeel Mangi (NJ) will need particularly favorable attendance to be confirmed as the first Muslim circuit judge, having garnered opposition from CCM, Rosen, and Manchin. Embry Kidd (FL), Ryan Park (NC), and Karla Campbell (TN) were nominated over the objection of their home state senators; I feel good about Kidd's chances and lean towards confirmation on the other two (Tillis has an active campaign against Park and Campbell being a labor lawyer makes Manchin support less likely). Biden's got three weeks to name a nominee for his home state circuit vacancy in order to get them confirmed this congress.

There are 23 blue state+DC district vacancies, and 19 of them have viable nominees. As with the aforementioned DE seat, Biden has three weeks to name nominees for two CA seats without nominees and seats in CA (Rebecca Kanter, dropped from her hearing because of something unearthed in her background) and NY (Sarah Netburn, voted down in committee for decision transferring trans woman to women's prison) with doomed nominees.

Mustafa Kasubhai (OR, Muslim, accusations of college Marxism), Sarah Russell (CT, advocated large-scale release of prisoners during pandemic), Amir Ali (DC, Muslim), Sparkle Sooknanan (DC, repped vulture capitalists over PR debts), Noel Wise (CA, may oppose gender-based bathrooms), and Anthony Brindisi (NY, co-sponsored trans rights legislation) would almost certainly be party-line votes, assuming they can retain Manchin and/or Sinema.

There are also 37 seats with a GOP blue slip that won't be filled this congress, but a President Harris would be able to fill most of them even without eliminating blue slips, at least with a Dem senate. Biden's filled 33 district seats with a GOP blue slip, including 28/36 that opened before the current congress.

One tax court nominee, two for the DC Court of Appeals, and 8 for the DC Superior Court are also pending; loss of the senate for a Harris administration could dictate a portion of the senate's time during the lame duck for key confirmations. Biden sits at 213 Article III confirmations, and could reach as high as 242, and while passing Trump's single-term record of 234 won't require good luck per se, it will require avoiding bad luck.

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Paleo's avatar

Polls out this morning include Trump up 51-46 and Cruz up 49-46 in Texas and Harris up 52-44 in Virginia (Emerson). Rosen up 53-38 (Noble Predictive) and Alsobrooks up 51-40 (University of Maryland).

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