Judicial Confirmation Expert Carrie Severino to Speak at National Policy Conference

We are pleased to have Carrie Severino speak on one of our breakout panels on "Restoring the Rule of Law to the Judiciary" at RNLA’s National Policy Conference.  Carrie is one of the leading experts on the judicial confirmation process and the qualifications of federal judicial nominees.  Carrie has been in this role for years through both Republican and Democrat control of the White House and Senate.  A few of her recent views.

On Chairman Grassley’s leadership on the “blue slip” process.  

Senator Grassley's policy is completely consistent with the 100-year history of the blue slip. This CRS report gives lots of historical detail: https://t.co/OV5EmXIED0

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) February 16, 2018

Severino is a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas.  Unfortunately, part of her job is defending Justice Thomas from the periodic groundless attacks such as a cover story in New Yorker Magazine a few months ago.   

A boring rerun of discredited allegations from the 1990s, resurrected by a discredited journalist who was fired for lying and mistreating her own employees. https://t.co/msol7WsiK0

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) February 19, 2018

But Severino's expertise is not just limited to countering groundless Democrats' attacks or obstruction, she also provides insightful commentary on nominees.  A recent sample after President Trump nominated Britt Grant, a justice on the Georgia Supreme Court, and Patrick Wyrick, an associate justice on the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Severino said the country would benefit from having more state justices serve on the federal bench. State supreme court justices often have the privilege of settling judicial matters whereas federal judges know that the buck does not stop on sensitive or controversial cases until the federal Supreme Court.

The process of nominating and confirming judicial nominees is needlessly complicated by often imagined or misinterpreted Senate procedures such as the blue slip.  Severino does a masterful job of cutting through the chatter and instead focusing on the abilities of the nominees.  

Federal Judicial Vacancies Increasing Due to Senate Democrats' Obstruction

Despite the unprecedented number of U.S. Court of Appeals judges confirmed in President Trump's first year in office, Democrat obstruction has lead to more judicial vacancies now than there were a year ago:

Trump came into office in January 2017 with 108 vacancies on the federal bench. Despite rapidly moving to fill the seats, he now has 178 current and known future vacancies, according to the Judicial Crisis Network.

The conservative group reports 146 current vacancies on federal courts and 32 known future vacancies, meaning judges who have announced they will retire. Of the total vacancies, 25 are appeals court judges and 153 are district or specialty court judges. . . .

The slowdown is a result of Senate Democrats’ requiring 30 hours of debate for every nominee, even those who clear the Judiciary Committee unanimously or near unanimously, Severino and others noted. 

“At this rate, it will take the president more than two terms to fill all the vacancies,” [Carrie] Severino said.

Senate Democrats are using these delay tactics solely to score political points with their liberal base and resist President Trump, as they insist on 30 hours of "debate" (i.e., empty Senate floor time) for even nominees with broad, bipartisan support.

Even the center-left Pew Research Center has confirmed that obstruction against President Trump's nominees is unprecedented:

The 23 men and six women Trump has successfully appointed so far have faced a total of 654 “no” votes on the floor of the Senate, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center and the U.S. Senate. That works out to an average of nearly 23 votes against each confirmed judge – by far the highest average for any president’s judges since the Senate expanded to its current 100 members in 1959. 

The 330 judges Barack Obama appointed during his eight years in office faced an average of six votes against them. George W. Bush’s 328 confirmed judges faced an average of two, and Bill Clinton’s 382 judges faced an average of just over one. . . .  

Just one of President John F. Kennedy’s 134 confirmed judges drew any “no” votes in the Senate. That was Thurgood Marshall, whom the Senate confirmed to the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on a 54-16 vote in 1962. (Four senators voted “present” on Marshall’s nomination; 26 others didn’t vote at all.) All of Kennedy’s other confirmed judges were approved on a voice vote – that is, without any recorded opposition.

Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, also faced little Senate opposition to his judicial choices: All but two of his 186 confirmed judges were approved on a voice vote. 

Thanks to the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, President Trump's excellent nominees are being vetted, receiving hearings, and receiving votes.  Unfortunately due to the Democrats' unprecedented obstruction, far fewer judges are being confirmed than are needed on the federal bench. 

Senate Democrats Stalling Hearing for Conservative Justice Joan Larsen from Michigan

Senate Democrats are using an unprecedented technique to stall the hearing of Justice Joan Larsen of Michigan to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Senate Judiciary Committee has not taken up the nomination of Larsen because the two Senators from Michigan, Democrats Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, have not signaled their approval according to The Detroit News.

Under Senate tradition, the committee doesn't hold hearings for a judicial nominee until his or her home-state senators submit "blue slips" showing their consent to advancing the nomination. 

“What we have seen is that these senators [Stabenow and Peters] are attempting to use Senate procedure to just block Larsen’s appointment altogether,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. 

 Severino added:

That’s a real shame. She is highly qualified, she was a very popular and accomplished professor at the University of Michigan, she’s a great Supreme Court justice for the state of Michigan, and was just re-elected by the citizens of the state that these senators claim to represent. This is something that is manifestly not in the interest of their own constituents; it’s truly just plain politics. 

Justice Larsen's many accomplishments in Michigan. She clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Larsen also caught the eye of President Trump, who had her on the short list of potential Supreme Court nominees during his Presidential campaign. Despite her qualifications, Democrats are playing politics to refuse a highly-qualified Judicial appointee.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley could still intervene despite the stalling. Elizabeth Slattery, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email:

Grassley may decide to put a time limit on when senators must return a blue slip, otherwise assuming they do not object. He could treat blue slips for appeals court nominees differently than those for district court nominees, since customarily, home-state senators have played a larger role in selecting district court nominees. He could also jettison blue slips entirely—although that’s unlikely to happen. 

It's unfortunate that Senate Democrats are using these tactics to stall a very well qualified appointee to the federal bench. Senate Democrats should look beyond party politics and provide a timely up-or-down vote for these well-qualified nominees to help fill the 150+ judicial appointee vacancies.

[Note: This blog post was first published on Monday, July 17, 2017.]

Order in the Court: Trump Continues to Nominate Stellar Judges for Vacancies

Over the last week, President Trump has nominated 21 judges to fill various lower Federal Court openings, including 8 who were named this past Wednesday. Currently, there are 132 judicial openings throughout the Federal Court system, nearly half the openings have been classified as “judicial emergencies” by the government's Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The most recent batch of judicial nominations is receiving the praise of conservative and libertarian legal scholars and leaders.

Today, Ilya Shapiro remarked in The Federalist:

This week, in an echo of how the 21 contenders for the Supreme Court vacancy were rolled out during the presidential campaign, 11 would-be black-robers join last month’s stellar list of 10 lower-court nominees . . . Case Western law professor Jonathan Adler, who appeared with me on a panel at Cato’s 40th anniversary celebration right before the May 8 announcement, says they’re “‘incredibly strong nominees’ who were within the judicial mainstream and should ‘have an intellectual influence on their courts.’” As they say in Congress, I wish to associate myself with that analysis—and to extend those remarks to apply to all the nominees we’ve seen thus far. . . .

If the other eight announced June 7 are of the same caliber as these three (and the previous 10)—and we have no reason to think otherwise given that the administration’s nominations staff is the same—then this is the sort of #winning of which I won’t ever tire . . . In the meantime, the White House counsel’s office should just keep these black-robe orders coming. Their work, and that of the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, has allowed President Trump—regardless of what else he does with his time—to continue fulfilling what was probably his most important campaign promise: to appoint “the best” judges. 

The Washington Times also published an article praising of these nominees and provided a brief expose of a few nominees that stand out: 

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, called the latest wave of nominees “a fantastic list.” . . . “Many of the nominees are well known in the conservative legal movement and have shown commitment to principled and evenhanded application of the law throughout their careers,” she said. “For the many Americans whose top concern in November was electing a president who would put committed constitutionalists to the courts, this is another major victory.”

According to Fox News, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) released a statement on President Trump’s judicial nominees lauding their pick:

President Obama understood the singular importance of the lower courts, which is why he was so vigorous in appointing judges with a greater commitment to the liberal political agenda than to our Constitution . . . [However, t]he time has come to right the wrongs of the previous administration . . . These supremely qualified jurists will restore respect and credibility to the judicial branch by saying what the law is—not what it ought to be.

The RNLA praises President Trump and his Administration's work to fill the vacancies on the Federal Bench. These judges are an important step towards ensure the Rule of Law is applied and the Constitution is followed. We look forward to seeing many more judges with impeccable records, like the last score of judges nominated.