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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Before leaving for

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Speaker 1: its August recess, the Senate confirmed thirty new federal judges

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Speaker 1: to the bench, bringing the total number of Trump appointees

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Speaker 1: to the bench to one forty four, allowing Trump to

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Speaker 1: reshape the courts with conservatives for decades to come. Trump

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Speaker 1: compared his record to that of the nation's first president

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Speaker 1: at a rally in Cincinnati last Thursday, who percentage wise

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Speaker 1: has done better than me with judges. Tell them, I'll

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Speaker 1: give you a hit. Have you appointed one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of the federal judges and one hundred percent of the

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Speaker 1: United State It's Supreme Court? George Washington. Trump has now

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Speaker 1: surpassed Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: and Barack Obama in getting judges confirmed by this time

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Speaker 1: in their tenure. Joining me is Carl Tobias, professor at

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Speaker 1: the University of Richmond's School of Law, carl A news

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Speaker 1: release from Senate Republicans listed transforming the courts as one

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Speaker 1: of the first of several gop accomplishments this session. Have

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Speaker 1: they transformed the courts yet, Well, it's a little early

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Speaker 1: for that, but uh, certainly there have been record numbers

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Speaker 1: of appellate judges forty three out of the armed forty

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Speaker 1: four that you just mentioned, and so that's a significant accomplishment.

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Speaker 1: He did set records for the first two years and

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Speaker 1: is appointed, uh some thirteen this year. However, there's only

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Speaker 1: four vacancies out of hundred and seventy nine now and

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Speaker 1: so unless they're more opening soon, that may not set

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Speaker 1: more records. So now I think they're turning the attention

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Speaker 1: to the district courts, as you mentioned last week, who

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Speaker 1: were confirmed. So of these judges he's put in lifetime positions,

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Speaker 1: they're younger, and the majority are white. Eighty six of

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Speaker 1: his nominees two appeals courts are white. He's never nominated

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Speaker 1: an African American or his Hispanic to an appellate court.

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Speaker 1: What's the effect of that lack of diversity on the

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Speaker 1: high courts in the nation, with the highest except for

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Well, it's important to have diverse points

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Speaker 1: of view uh, and diversity in terms of gender, ethnicity. Um.

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Speaker 1: And there he has lagged as you suggest. Um. Twenty

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Speaker 1: four of his nominees are people of color, but none

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Speaker 1: to the appellate bench, as you mentioned, And so uh,

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Speaker 1: it's important in terms of public confidence in the courts,

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Speaker 1: in terms of having diverse viewpoints on the federal bench. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he has not done as well, certainly as the

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Speaker 1: last president did, and probably not much better than George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush did on the diversity issue. Neil cut you out?

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Speaker 1: Who's the former actings listener General under President Obama sat

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Speaker 1: on MSNBC that several of Trump's choices to fill the

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Speaker 1: judicial vacancies were quote tremendously under qualified. Do you agree

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Speaker 1: with that? Well, there have been some the A B

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Speaker 1: A you know, who rates and evaluates them, but has

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Speaker 1: been cut out of the process pretty much under the administration. Uh,

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Speaker 1: did find seven were not qualified. President Obama wouldn't nominate

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Speaker 1: anyone who had a not qualified eating four of those

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Speaker 1: have been confirmed, and so uh, there are some who

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Speaker 1: may not be sufficiently qualified according to the A B

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Speaker 1: A in its rating system to sit on the federal bench.

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Speaker 1: And so that is a problem, and some have withdrawn

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Speaker 1: who went forward and had reasonable A B A recommendations

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Speaker 1: or ratings, and so, um, it's hard to say exactly.

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Speaker 1: I think. On the appellate bench, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: a number of them have had well qualified ratings from

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Speaker 1: the A B A. But at the district level, I

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Speaker 1: think you see more of the lower ratings. Republicans have

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Speaker 1: gotten several controversial nominees confirmed, including one who opposed said

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Speaker 1: publicly that he opposed Roe v. Wade, and dozens of

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Speaker 1: the nominees have refused to answer whether they support the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Courts holding in Brown v. Board of Education. Is

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Speaker 1: that problematic? Well, that's a complicated question. Uh. Some of

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Speaker 1: them claim that the canons of Judicial ethics prevent their

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Speaker 1: answering that question, but a number have answered it. And

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Speaker 1: a number of the Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice Roberts

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Speaker 1: and others have been willing to answer the Brown versus

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Speaker 1: Board question. Uh. And so I think that that is

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Speaker 1: there's a clear answer to that. But uh, they nominees

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Speaker 1: could be more forthcoming. Some have been, but a number

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Speaker 1: have not on those kinds of questions. But what's pretty

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Speaker 1: striking is LAMB illegal compiled a list which found that

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Speaker 1: a third of his nominees have anti lgbt Q records,

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Speaker 1: and that's problematic. Democrats have had some small successes in

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Speaker 1: getting nominees confirmed, and they among the judges installed on

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Speaker 1: district corps were four Obama era holdovers whose nominations had

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Speaker 1: remained in that limbo that judges often remain in for years.

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Speaker 1: How were the Democrats successful at that? That's a really

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Speaker 1: good question. People don't realize that. But actually President Trump

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Speaker 1: has renominated some fifteen nominees whom President Obama nominated in

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Speaker 1: the last two years of his administration, and principally he's

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Speaker 1: done that in blue states where the blue slip still

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Speaker 1: operates for district court nominees. And so discretion is the

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Speaker 1: better part of valor UH in the sense that the

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Speaker 1: president wants to fill those seats, but knows that he

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Speaker 1: has to work with the home state senators. And so

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Speaker 1: many of these nominees of those fifteen have now been confirmed.

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Speaker 1: There's several more UH up, probably in September. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's a healthy development and pragmatic and and smart

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Speaker 1: on the President's part. About a minute here, We've talked

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Speaker 1: several times about how Republicans have been more focused on

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Speaker 1: the judiciary and getting a conservative judiciary than the Democrats

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Speaker 1: have been on the judiciary. And yet we had the

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Speaker 1: Democratic presidential debates and that wasn't even one of the topics. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a good question, and the Democratic nominees have been

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Speaker 1: criticized for that, and several of them actually set on

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Speaker 1: a judiciary committee. So hopefully the Democrats will realize that

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Speaker 1: judges are critically important. They all hold life tenure and

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Speaker 1: resolve the most fundamental disputes in our society, and so

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Speaker 1: it's critical to um be tough minded about that, to

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Speaker 1: be fair, but be rigorous. Thanks so much, as always, Carl.

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Speaker 1: That's Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond's School

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Speaker 1: of Law. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law punt Cast.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg