New Project Would Help Dem President Pick Judges in 2021
Published in Bloomberg Law
Progressives are working on potential nominees for judicial vacancies if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2020.
Alliance for Justice’s Building the Bench project is “designed to get a leg up on the process so that we’re ready with names” for senators and the new president by the time he or she would take office, AFJ founder and president Nan Aron said in an interview.
The project aims to counter President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal judiciary. He’s appointed more than 100 judges to lifetime positions, including two Supreme Court justices and dozens of district and circuit court appointments.
Aron said she expects a number of judges eligible for senior status to either do that and step away from a full schedule or retire in 2021, adding to any vacancies.
Trump has had the benefit of a large number of vacancies and a Republican-controlled Senate to push through a record number of nominees so far. If that majority holds, it’s not known now how the Senate would react to Democratic judicial selections. Republicans blocked a number of Barack Obama’s picks, including Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.