Trump Administration Fast-Tracking Judge Confirmations
Nadia Ramlagan, Public News Service – AR
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Over the past few years, the U.S. Senate has
confirmed 185 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, the
majority of whom have a conservative track record.
Along with two Supreme Court justices, senators have confirmed 50 circuit court and 133 district court judges.
According to States Newsroom reporter Allison Stevens,
who has covered politics for nearly a decade, the sheer number of
conservative confirmations amounts to what some are calling a repeal of
progressive reforms that hearken back to the New Deal.
“And what President Trump is doing, and Mitch McConnell is supporting
and doing in the Senate, is supporting hundreds of conservative judges,
who oppose a lot of progressive reforms, throughout the country,”
Stevens explains.
The Senate recently confirmed Lee Philip Rudofsky as federal judge for
the eastern district of Arkansas, which includes Little Rock.
Stevens says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell regularly speaks in
public about his goal of filling all of the remaining vacancies left on
the federal judiciary.
“But I don’t think it’s something that the media pays much attention to,
and I don’t think it’s something that the public really cares all that
much about, for the most part,” Stevens states.
Stevens says groups such as the American Constitution Society and the Alliance for Justice are trying to change that.
“They’re trying to call attention to the impact that these judges have
on so many aspects of daily life, but in general, they do sort of fly
under the radar,” she points out.
According to the American Constitution Society, more than 70 vacancies on district and circuit courts have yet to be filled.