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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. President Trump has

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Speaker 1: moved aggressively to reshape the federal judiciary with conservatives, and

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Speaker 1: he's now flipped the US Court of Appeals for the

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Speaker 1: Eleventh Circuit to a majority of Republican appointed judges, the

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Speaker 1: third such changeover during his administration that raises the number

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Speaker 1: of appeals courts with a majority of Republican appointees to

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Speaker 1: seven out of the thirteen circuits. Joining me is Carl Tobias,

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Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Richmond's School of Law. Carl,

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Speaker 1: what does this mean for the Eleventh Circuit. He actually

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Speaker 1: has appointed five new members to that court since the inauguration,

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Speaker 1: and so now there will be a majority of active

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Speaker 1: judges on the court who Republican presidents have appointed. And

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Speaker 1: while that's a crude, measured gives us some sense of

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Speaker 1: what the opinions might look like. So it would mean

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Speaker 1: more of the panels will have two to one Republican

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Speaker 1: as opposed to Democratic appointed judges, and the same for

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Speaker 1: the on bonk calls and then the on bonk hearings,

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Speaker 1: which are important in a small number of cases, and

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Speaker 1: so you're just going to see much more I think

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Speaker 1: conservative rulings from that court in critical areas such as

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Speaker 1: voting rights, all the cultural war issues like abortion, religious freedom,

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Speaker 1: questions of discrimination on the basis of race, lgbt Q rights,

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Speaker 1: all of those issues are likely to result in more

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Speaker 1: conservative rulings, and Carl, the Eleventh Circuit is sort of

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Speaker 1: the hotbed, if you'll half it, of cases involving allegations

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Speaker 1: of significant election law problems. That's correct, and so we'll

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Speaker 1: see how they resolved them. But the concern, of course

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Speaker 1: is that some of those actions will not be overturned.

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Speaker 1: And voting is so critical to American democracy, and that's

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Speaker 1: an issue for great concern for many people. As you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: in just three years, President Trump has nominated five judges

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Speaker 1: out of twelve on the Eleventh Circuit, and nationwide, he's

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Speaker 1: appointed forty eight judges to the appellate courts. By contrast,

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Speaker 1: President Barack Obama appointed forty eight judges to the appellate

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Speaker 1: courts during eight years in office. Have you ever seen

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Speaker 1: such a rapid transformation before. Well, he has set all

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Speaker 1: records for appellate judges being confirmed, and that has made

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Speaker 1: a difference. More than a quarter of the active judges

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Speaker 1: have been appointed by President Trump with the help of

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Speaker 1: Senator McConnell as a majority leader, and it has flipped

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Speaker 1: three of the appeals courts so far, and maybe more.

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Speaker 1: He's appointed i think ten to the Ninth Circuit, which

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Speaker 1: is the bane of his existence, and he's been very

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Speaker 1: critical of that court because it overturns most of his

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Speaker 1: decisions on issues like immigration and other important issues. So

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Speaker 1: there's only one appellate vacancy out of a hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy nine nationwide, which gives you a sense. And it

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Speaker 1: hasn't been that low since before Bush took office, probably

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Speaker 1: in the Clinton error or maybe even further back to

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Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush. So that's unbelievable. And there's still

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Speaker 1: eighty seven district court vacancies, there's still fifty one emergency vacancies,

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Speaker 1: and so everything has been done or neglected like what

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Speaker 1: I just mentioned, in order to rapidly approve people for

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Speaker 1: all of the appeals court vacancies. Why aren't the emergency

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Speaker 1: vacancy spots being filled and what effect does that have? Well,

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Speaker 1: one reason is a number of them are in states

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Speaker 1: represented by Democratic senators. For example, there are thirteen district

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Speaker 1: court vacancies, all emergencies in California, and the President has

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Speaker 1: confirmed no one to the California courts and they're under

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Speaker 1: extreme pressure because of the dockets. In New York a

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Speaker 1: very similar situation. Though he has noticed up votes on

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Speaker 1: some of those nominees the week they returned in early December,

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Speaker 1: so that will help. But they're currently twelve vacancies, eight

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Speaker 1: of which are emergencies in New York. New Jersey has

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Speaker 1: six emergencies, and the President has nominated no one so

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Speaker 1: far for any of those vacancies. So you have courts

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Speaker 1: that are in extreme situations. The pressure is just unbearable

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Speaker 1: for judges in those states. Will you explain the importance

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Speaker 1: of the appeals courts as compared to the district courts.

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Speaker 1: The appeals courts are the supreme courts in their regions

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Speaker 1: of cases are finally decided in need. For example, the

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Speaker 1: Eleventh Circuit. If you live in Florida, Alabama, or Georgia,

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Speaker 1: and so they are the supreme courts in those areas.

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Speaker 1: They're the final word, really, because Supreme Court here is

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Speaker 1: so few cases hundred a year. So that's why they

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Speaker 1: focus like a laser on that. A district judges rulings

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Speaker 1: don't even bind other people in the same court house,

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Speaker 1: but anything out of the Eleventh Circuit would bind all

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Speaker 1: judges in those three states, and so it's critically important.

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Speaker 1: And that's why the Republicans have stressed that because there's

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Speaker 1: only one more vacancy, does that mean that we won't

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Speaker 1: see any other circuit courts being flipped for a while. No,

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Speaker 1: because what's happened is there are people who have signaled

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Speaker 1: that they'll take a senior status. They're called future emergencies.

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Speaker 1: For example, j Byby in the nine Circuit will take

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Speaker 1: senior status on December thirty one, and one of the

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Speaker 1: nominees who has moved forward from Nevada for the ninth

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Speaker 1: Circuit would replace Jay Biby, So you have that kind

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Speaker 1: of situation. One of the judges for the eleventh Circuit,

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Speaker 1: who has replaced Judge show Flat, has not yet assumed

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Speaker 1: senior status, but now will. And so there are still

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Speaker 1: some in the pipeline, and we'll see those people confirmed

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Speaker 1: as well. Thanks Carl. That's Carl Tobias at the University

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Speaker 1: of Richmond's School of Law. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the

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Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com

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Speaker 1: slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg do