Trump Drops Obama Picks From Judge's List

of the Senate Judiciary Committee, replacing Senator Chuck Grassley. Joining me is Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Carl explain the process of renominations and why it's necessary. Well, at the end of the Congress, all of those nominations to the judiciary the President made last year expired on January two, and about seventy three people he had nominated than had to be renominated. He did last week renominate fifty of them, but they're twenty

three or so. He has not chosen to renominate yet and may still do that. But that's what just happened, and then on the Senate Judiciary Committee website, there will be a business meeting and those nominees, h forty of them are listed for the first time. Democrats will hold them over for a week, but then the following Tuesday, there will be a vote on all of them, I think, and probably virtually all will go back to the floor

where they could be considered for confirmation votes. Now, he dropped at least five nominees that were put forward by Barack Obama when he was president, and a number of appellate and district court nominees from California, New York, and Illinois. What's your take on why, Well, it's not at all clear, but there may be some payback, if you will, for Democrats in blue states. Doesn't seem to make a lot

of sense. And many of those nominees, especially the Obama nominees whom Trump renominated, were people who Republican senators recommended. But I think, for example, in New York, Senator Schumer and Gila Brand worked very hard with the President to have a good slate that everybody could sign off on. So I don't know what they'll do now, but hopefully the district nominees who were not renominated will be renominated, and the same as to a number of others. We

just don't know yet. So traditionally, the White House negotiates with the home state senators, as you mentioned Schumer and gilla Brand to find consensus picks, and then the majority waits for blue slips from those senators. Is that process going on in the Trump administration and is there any difference with the new White House Council. I don't think there's any difference in Senator Graham has said he will follow the same procedures for blue slips as Senator grass

Lee did. What Grassly did was create an exception for the Appellate Court nominees and said if there were adequate White House consultation, then blue slips were not going to be relevant, even if senators withheld them. And so that was very different than the eight years under President Obama. And so that's the major difference is at the circuit level. And of course the administration has set records for appointing people to the Appellate bench thirty in the first two years,

which is shattered all records for that number. Let's talk a little bit about some of the nominees. The nominee for Justice Brett Kavanaugh's old seat on the d C Circuit is Naomi Rao, who works in the White House

Budget Office. Why are liberal groups complaining about her nomination. Well, I think that she has what they can sider to be fairly controversial writings, mostly when she was an undergraduate or law student, but some law review articles she wrote as a scholar, I think at George Mason are considered to be somewhat controversial as well, and so I think that's what they're concerned about. So we'll see what happens with her. Does the minority have any real power here?

Because the Senate Republicans have even more of a majority than they had before. Yes, it's now fifty seven as opposed to and on the Committee it's twelve ten, and so it the Democrats do not have a whole lot of power, though Graham said he would retain blue slip policy for district nominees. So even if it's a Democratic objection to a nominee in the home state, that person

will not go forward, according to Senator Graham. And so that's one piece of leverage that the Democrats do have, and of course they can rigorously question people in hearings and have debates on the floor, and so they haven't lost everything. But one big notion that may come up is the notion of of culture, where you cut off debate if the majority wants to do that, And where the big change could come is the number of post

culture debate hours. Right now, they're talking about a nuclear option which would lower that time from thirty hours for judicial nominees, for circuit nominees it would go to eight, and for district nominees it would go to two, and that would really accelerate confirmations. We've spoken before about the possibility that Trump may be able to flip some of the circuits with the current batch of nominees. Is there

a flip in the making? Um? No, but you're correct, there's some strengthening of the number of GOP appointed nominees if they're confirmed. For example, two more would be confirmed to the sixth Circuit, which would mean they have a fairly strong majority there if you consider appointing presidents, and then or two for the ninth Circuit, which has been the circuit that the President is most concerned about and

most often vilifies. Their two nominees out there who could begin to make a change in their formal vacancies on that court. But it's interesting there's three California nominees from October. We're not renominating yet, and there may be negotiations between the Senators in California and the White House on those renominations. All right, Carla, let's talk about in the future. Thanks so much. That's Carl Tobias, professor of the University of

Richmond's School of Law. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Rosso. This is Bloomberg. H m hm