Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. President Trump surpassed
Speaker 1: his judicial confirmation goal with a year end Senate sprint,
Speaker 1: confirming thirteen district court nominees over two days before the recess.
Speaker 1: That brings the number of Trump appointees to three at
Speaker 1: district and appeals courts and two at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Democrats have been taking notice of the conservative stamp Trump
Speaker 1: is putting on the federal judiciary. Here's Senator Amy Klobuchar
Speaker 1: at last week's PBS News Our political presidential debate. We
Speaker 1: have to immediately start putting judges on the bench to
Speaker 1: phil vacancies so that we can reverse the horrific nature
Speaker 1: of these Trump judges. Joining me as Carl Tobias, professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Richmond's School of Law. So, Carl,
Speaker 1: has President Trump hit his three year target for judges
Speaker 1: or actually exceeded it? He has exceeded his target by
Speaker 1: appointing fifty appellate court judgesty three district court judges, and
Speaker 1: two Supreme Court justices. His target was one eighty and
Speaker 1: he's hit one eight five. You mentioned fifty circuit court judges,
Speaker 1: that's only five short of President Barack Obama's record in
Speaker 1: an eight year period. Tell us about the circuit courts
Speaker 1: and which have been flipped. Well, President Trump has set
Speaker 1: all records for appellate confirmations at this juncture of a presidency.
Speaker 1: He's been appointed the most fifty. There's only one vacancy
Speaker 1: out of a hundred and seventy nine nationwide, which hasn't
Speaker 1: been the case since the last century. And he has
Speaker 1: been able to flip the Second Circuit, the Third Circuit,
Speaker 1: and the Eleventh Circuit, so they all of Republican appointed
Speaker 1: judges in the majority on those courts. Have we seen
Speaker 1: a change from the more conservative judges at the appellate level?
Speaker 1: Have we seen a change in the decisions yet? I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty early to tell that. There have been
Speaker 1: a number of opinions written by those judges, of course,
Speaker 1: usually their concurrences or dissents, as opposed to say, the
Speaker 1: majority on a three judge panel. But we're beginning to
Speaker 1: see some of those cases where Trump judge makes the difference.
Speaker 1: For example, in the case of the Fifth Circuit just
Speaker 1: decided on Obamacare, where the judge supplies the third vote
Speaker 1: that makes a majority. And so that's like it happen.
Speaker 1: And don't forget the legacy. People who are in their
Speaker 1: forties will be serving for three or four decades on
Speaker 1: the appellate courts and will see more and more opinions
Speaker 1: coming from those judges over taught. So, now that he's
Speaker 1: filled virtually every vacancy in the appellate court system, Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell has turned to the district court the trial court
Speaker 1: judges in the federal system. So what did he manage
Speaker 1: to do before the Senate adjourned for the break. Well,
Speaker 1: he was able to bring forward thirteen nominees and have
Speaker 1: cloture and confirmation votes on all thirteen for vacancies around
Speaker 1: the country, which is a substantial number. And that has
Speaker 1: brought the number of district vacancies down to sixty seven,
Speaker 1: which is the fewest that there have been in the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, and it was as high as a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty. And it also has brought down the emergency vacancies,
Speaker 1: which are the worst cases because of protracted vacancies and
Speaker 1: huge dockets. That number has gone from eighty six at
Speaker 1: it's high to forty one. And so it's good in
Speaker 1: the sense of filling these vacancies, giving the courts the
Speaker 1: resources they need, especially in civil cases. The ideological bent
Speaker 1: of a district court judge is it as important as
Speaker 1: the ideological bent of an appellate judge. No, it's not,
Speaker 1: in principally because the reach of a decision or an
Speaker 1: opinion out of a district court judge doesn't even bind
Speaker 1: his or her colleagues in the same courthouse, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the appellate level, where a decision, for example, out
Speaker 1: of the Second Circuit binds everyone in New York, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and Vermont. And so because of Supreme Court here, so
Speaker 1: few cases hunderd a year, that is the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: for people who live in those three states, and so
Speaker 1: those decisions are more critical to creating president in the
Speaker 1: regional circuits around the country. And so the Trump administration
Speaker 1: has focused like a laser on filling all of those vacancies.
Speaker 1: How is he able to do this so fast? Is
Speaker 1: he skipping over some of the debate who is vetting
Speaker 1: all these candidates. Well, mostly they're being vetted by the
Speaker 1: White House and Justice Department, and sometimes that leads to
Speaker 1: insufficiently rigorous investigation, and sometimes in the Judiciary Committee there
Speaker 1: isn't as complete investigation or questioning with rigor of the
Speaker 1: nominees that some people would like to see. And nine
Speaker 1: of his nominees received not qualified ratings from the A
Speaker 1: B A and seven of those have been confirmed, three
Speaker 1: for the appellate courts, so there is some slippage there.
Speaker 1: And all presidents except Trump and George W. Bush have
Speaker 1: honored and followed those A B A recommendations, going back
Speaker 1: to Eisenhower, and of course President Obama refused to nominate
Speaker 1: anyone who received a not qualified rating. You want to
Speaker 1: have the finest people on the appeals industry courts around
Speaker 1: the country. Thanks Carl. That's Carl Tobias, professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Richmond School of Law. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg