Trump Nears Post-Nixon First: No Black Circuit Judges (Corrected)
Trump Nears Post-Nixon First: No Black Circuit Judges (Corrected)
June 24, 2020
Trump appointed one Hispanic and zero Black appeals court judges
Diversity in appellate picks is almost entirely Asian Americans
Donald Trump is on track to be the first president since Richard Nixon to go a full first term without selecting a Black nominee for a federal appeals court.
Just one of Trump’s 53 confirmed appeals court judges is Hispanic and none are Black. That compares to about 27% of President Barack Obama’s and roughly 15% under President George W. Bush, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of FJ Center data.
Trump,.. has exceeded both of his immediate predecessors in the percentage of Asian American appointees to federal appeals courts, which explains why about 15% of his appellate appointments have been people of color, compared to roughly 35% under Obama and 15% under Bush.
The figures for Obama and Bush,.. respectively, cover their two terms in office.
But Trump has appointed nearly as many judges to the appellate courts with his first term not yet complete as they did overall. Every president since Nixon, who took office in 1969, appointed a Black appeals court judge in their first four years save Gerald Ford, who served a partial term, and Trump....
Senate obstructionism handed a raft of judicial vacancies to Trump—what has he done with them?
FIXGOV
Senate obstructionism handed a raft of judicial vacancies to Trump—what has he done with them?
Russell Wheeler, June 4, 2018
Donald Trump inherited 88 district and 17 court of appeals vacancies. Fourteen months later he
proclaimed “when I got in we had over 100 federal judges that weren’t appointed. I don’t know why Obama left that … Maybe he got complacent.”
The reasons for the vacancies—old news to most—was the flimsy confirmation record in the 2015-16 Senate (the 114th) with its new Republican majority. Just as it refused to consider Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, it shut down the lower court confirmation process. That’s water under the bridge. But documenting how the 114th Senate ratcheted up the contentiousness and polarization of an already broken confirmation process suggests how much harder it will be to ratchet it back into something with more comity and bipartisanship. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell now
insists that there’s nothing “we can do …that’s more important … than confirming judges as rapidly as we get them.” Commentators
boast that “Trump has had a massive impact on the federal bench.” The Republican majority
refuses to grant Democratic senators privileges that Republicans and Democrats exploited vigorously in previous administrations.....[/FONT]
