President-elect Donald Trump will come into office next year with four extra slots to fill on the federal bench, thanks to a deal Senate Republicans struck with Democrats.
Republicans agreed to relent on their procedural warfare waged in recent days in an attempt to thwart the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees to lifetime appointments in his final weeks in office.
In exchange for the GOP allowing lower-level district court nominees to receive quicker votes, Senate Democrats will not move forward with confirming four higher-level circuit court picks and saving the positions for Trump to fill.
Both sides spun the arrangement as a win-win: Republicans will guarantee slots for Trump judges, and Democrats will save valuable floor time on fighting for nominees they were unsure could be confirmed.
“The reality was we had a serious question as to whether we had the votes on the floor for these four nominees and balancing the opportunity for record number of district court judges against that possibility,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told the Washington Examiner.
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Republicans have spent the week forcing time-consuming procedural roll call votes on a slate of judges that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sought to advance in the final weeks of a Democratic-controlled chamber. The tactic was orchestrated by Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), the incoming GOP leader.
But even with late-night votes on Wednesday that kept senators until early Thursday morning, Republicans feared they may still be unable to run out the clock before the end of the current Congress next month, according to lawmakers and sources. Attendance problems this week from GOP senators also undermined Republican efforts to defeat some of the party-line nominees who otherwise would not have been confirmed.
“The fatigue factor is one way of managing the floor, because if everybody’s totally exhausted, then they’re looking for ways to meet some sort of negotiated outcome,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said. “That’s what happened.”
Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who caucuses with Democrats, negotiated the agreement reached late Wednesday night, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Senate Democrats have confirmed 220 of Biden’s federal judicial nominees, putting them just 14 shy of Trump’s 234 in his first term.
Durbin was unsure whether Democrats will be able to match the figure in their remaining weeks. Still, he touted the significance as “nothing short of miraculous” given their razor-thin majorities of 50-50 and 51-49 under Biden.
“This is a remarkable number of judges who have been chosen to fill these vacancies across the United States,” Durbin said. “That is something many people doubted would happen.”
While Democrats expressed concerns about having the votes for their circuit court judges, Republicans were equally as worried about Trump’s ability to fill lower-level district judges in blue states with conservative nominees. The fears paved the way for Democrats to stick with Biden’s district court nominees and Republicans to secure the circuit court slots.
The four Biden circuit court nominees who will no longer be confirmed are Ryan Park, of North Carolina, for the 4th Circuit; Julia Lipez, of Maine, for the 1st Circuit; Karla Campbell, of Tennessee, for the 6th Circuit; and Adeel Mangi, of New Jersey, for the 3rd Circuit.
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Trump’s fury this week over Biden’s judicial nominees prompted Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the vice president-elect, to make a rare appearance at the Capitol. His absence, coupled with missed votes by Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio, Indiana Gov.-elect Mike Braun (R-IN), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), also drew the ire of Senate colleagues for squandering rare opportunities to defeat Biden appointments.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this week. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”