WASHINGTON ― He changed the rules to make it easier to confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court picks. He tossed out Senate traditions to make it easier to confirm Trump’s circuit judges. So, naturally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to adjust the rules again to make it easier to confirm the rest of Trump’s nominees to lifetime seats on federal courts.
“Obstruction for obstruction’s sake,” bemoaned McConnell, who was so Machiavellian about denying Obama the ability to confirm judges that he drove Republicans to block their own nominees and fueled a vacancy crisis on federal courts. Those changes, along with his latest push to make another rule change, are all part of McConnell’s grand plan: to use Trump’s presidency to put piles of young, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-voting rights ideologues into lifetime federal court seats before Trump is up for reelection in 2020.
McConnell and the White House have made filling circuit court vacancies their top priority so far, and they’ve had quite a run. The Senate has confirmed 37 circuit judges to date. That’s so many circuit judges ― more than any other president by this point in his first term ― that 1 in 5 seats on circuit courts is filled by a judge nominated by Trump.
“Many are less ideological and conservative than the circuit picks and are recommended by home-state senators who usually suggest them because they are competent to move the cases,” said Tobias. “For example, a number are magistrate judges or state court judges.”
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