Bloomberg Laws brought to you by USCF invest In. What's real Visit USCF investments dot com. That's USCF Investments dot Com. While there's been constant comment over the personnel changes in the Trump White House, unnoticed are the personnel changes he is succeeding in making on the federal bench. Trump is outpacing both his predecessors in confirming federal judges who have
lifetime tenures. This week, Alabama lawyer Kevin Newsome was confirmed to a seat on the eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on a sixty six to thirty one vote. Trump's fifth federal judge to be confirmed, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorst's joining me is Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond Law School, who is an expert in the
federal judiciary. Carl Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's tactic to keep the late Justice Anton Scalia's seat open was widely discussed and much criticized, But we didn't hear as much about McConnell's campaign to stop President Obama from filling vacancies on the federal bench. How did he do that when we had Chief Justice John Roberts complaining for years about
the number of judicial vacancies and calling it a crisis. Well, for the last two years of the Obama administration, the Majority leaders simply refused to allow floor votes on many of President Obama's nominees UM, and only confirmed the fewest circuit judges too during that period since the nineteenth century. Uh. But what that meant was uh, and today we're still at a point where they're almost one thirty circuit and district court vacancies around the country. Now, Trump is outpacing
both his predecessors. President Obama had no judges confirmed during his first six months at the White House, and President Bush didn't have three judges confirmed until August of his first term. How else do you compare Trump's record with his predecessors, Well, you you look at all a number of different factors. I think one concern for Democrats has been that some of the circuit nominees especially are quite conservative. But of course the president ran on that as an
important part of his campaign and platform. Uh. And so he's delivering on his promise. Um, And so uh, we'll have to see. Um. Both of the other administrations did begin slowly, and Trump has been very quick by way of nominating UM, and the question is whether the Senate can keep up UH and UH follow through by confirming all of the nominees he has named so far, and we'll continue to nominate, so we'll have to see how
it plays out. UM. I think the White House is not very realistic about how quickly you can move someone from nomination to confirmation. UM, even though Senator Grassley, chair of Judiciary, has been doing all that he can to schedule UH nominees for hearings and then votes in the
committee before they moved to the floor. Tell us about the so called blue slip that Democrats may be trying to use well in the lad In all eight years of the Obama administration, UM, both Senator Grassley when he was chaired the last two years and Senatorly he was chaired the first six years, honored the blue slip policy in the sense that they would not move on a nominee and provide a hearing unless both home state senators
had submitted the blue slips and UH. So Democrats, of course believe in fairness that the same policy should now apply and so unless Senator Grassley receives those two blue slips from the home state senators he ought not to
schedule a hearing. He hasn't scheduled hearing for anyone yet, but there's been enormous pressure from commentators and groups who are mostly conservative UH to abolish that procedure that's a hundred years old, first adopted in the teens UM and some people say as early as UM, and especially was practiced this way in the last eight years. UH. And so we'll see. Senator Grassley has mentioned that there might be exceptions UH, and the one prominent one is perhaps
differentiating circuit from district UH nominees. But that seems unfair and inappropriate to me because Republicans and Democrats alike treat the circuit nominees as more important than the district nominees. Have Democrats been using that blue slip to stall or
block nominees? Well, I think it's too early to tell. UH. Certainly, Republicans held onto blue slips, sometimes for as long as a year UM during the Obama years, and some people, certainly in sixteen at the appellate level, never received hearings UM. And it's so early in the administration it's difficult to tell. It does seem like the Democratic senators are doing their due diligence by way of investigating home state um nominees.
And uh, there at least from the Democratic perspective, has been concerned about nominations without consultation from the White House. That's a disputed matter. Uh. I think the nominations just go more smoothly when the White House consults, and President Obama always did that by way of talking with the home state senators and not even nominating people for whom there was not home state senator support. What is the likelihood that President Trump will be able to considerably move
the federal judiciary to the right. Well, if I mentioned earlier, some of and especially the appellate nominees are quite conservative politically, and so if he enjoys success at that level, they're twenty vacancies now, and he's nonated for a number of those seats. Uh, it could change the complexion, certainly in specific circuits and uh perhaps nationwide. So I think we'll just have to see how that works out. But twenty vacancies is quite a few out of hundred and seventy nine.
The percentages is high in about thirty seconds are the bulk of his nominations, the ones that were handpicked and vetted by the conservative legal thing tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. Well, I think the Federals Society has had the most to do with suggesting names for the appellate bench, and so I think that's true, probably less so at the district court level. Thanks so much, as always for
being on Bloomberg Law. That's Carl Tobias. He is a professor at the Richmond University College of Law.