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GoUBears's avatar

In a follow-up to my comment a month ago on judicial vacancies (https://www.the-downballot.com/p/weekly-open-thread-92b/comment/91949578), judges' pace towards the exits continues to be mercifully slow. In the past month, we've learned of three upcoming vacancies, with Timothy Batten (ND GA), Eric Melgren (D KS), and Sean Cox (ED MI) making announcements. That makes for ten announced vacancies since the election: one via a coffin and the other nine all coming from a pretty small group: Dubya district court appointees who didn't have a chance to retire the last time Trump was in office. Only 36 other judges fit that description, plus ten Trump appointees who will have a chance to retire towards the end of this term. That also applies to 11 and 3 circuit judges, respectively, but we haven't heard from any of them yet. Democratic senators also (for now) hold veto power via blue slips on 4/10 of the post-election announced vacancies, as well as 17/46 of the aforementioned Dubya/Trump district appointees' seats. However, Mike Fragoso, who shepherded Trump's nominees through the judiciary committee from 2019-2021, is now calling on GOP nominees to boycott the ABA rating process (which gives us the well qualified/qualified/not qualified scale), so that may be another guardrail slipping away.

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Anonymous's avatar

Theoretically the GA and MI seats shouldn't get filled, although I'm super skeptical the blue slip process for DC nominees survives this Congress.

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