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Bold Justice: August 6, 2018

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Ballotpedia's Bold Justice

Welcome to the August edition of Bold Justice, Ballotpedia's newsletter about SCOTUS and other judicial happenings around the U.S. This publication goes out the first Monday of the month. Don't want to miss any news during the dog days of summer? Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Daily Brew for the most up-to-date political information.
Court news

Keeping up with Kavanaugh

On July 9, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was appointed by former President George W. Bush on February 25, 2006.

Since the nomination, Kavanaugh has met with several Republican senators, including Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. On July 30, Joe Manchin of West Virginia became the first Democratic senator to meet with Kavanaugh. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) is scheduled to meet with the judge on August 15, and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) has said she plans to meet with him as well.

Kavanaugh completed a questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 14. The questionnaire asked for details on the judge’s published writings and public statements, recusals, and judicial offices he has held. Kavanaugh was also asked to list the ten most significant litigations he has handled and to write summaries of each case. You can view that list on Ballotpedia here.

On August 1, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings will likely begin in September. The senator predicted a confirmation vote would happen no later than October.
We #SCOTUS so you don't have to

SCOTUS has already agreed to hear 37 cases in the October 2018-2019 term, which begins on October 1. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and state/commonwealth courts have referred the most cases so far this year. SCOTUS has already agreed to hear seven cases each from the Ninth Circuit and state-level courts. For more information on the cases by court of origination, click here.

One case we are watching closely for next term is Gundy v. U.S., which is scheduled to be heard on October 2. At the center of the case is the nondelegation doctrine, which Ballotpedia defines as “a principle in constitutional and administrative law that holds that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to executive agencies or private entities.” A court decision in Gundy’s favor would be the first time in 80 years the court has ruled against the doctrine.
SCOTUS trivia

The Supreme Court’s average vacancy length—the period between a justice’s departure date and the swearing-in of his or her successor— since 1962 is 89 days. The longest vacancy occurred between the departure and appointment of which two justices?

  1. Justice Abe Fortas and Justice Harry Blackmun
  2. Justice Lewis Franklin Powell and Justice Anthony Kennedy
  3. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Neil Gorsuch
  4. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Samuel Alito

Choose an answer to find out!
Federal Court action

Confirmations

The United States Senate confirmed nine additional nominees since our last issue.

Since his inauguration, Trump has nominated 35 judges to circuit court posts. Of those 35 judges, 24 judges have been confirmed.

An average of 16.6 circuit court judges were confirmed by the end of each of the past five presidents’ second year in office:

  • Barack Obama: 16
  • George W. Bush: 17
  • Bill Clinton: 19
  • Ronald Reagan: 19
  • Jimmy Carter: 12

The U.S. Court of Appeals  (or circuit court) is the intermediate appellate court of the United States federal courts. There are 13 circuit courts with 179 authorized judgeships. Each circuit court decides appeals from any of the district courts—general trial courts on the federal level—within its federal judicial circuit. There are 94 federal district courts with 677 authorized judgeships.

The Senate has confirmed 54 of Trump’s nominees to federal courts tracked in Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count.

New nominations

Trump announced six new nominations last week:

Trump has announced 161 nominations since taking office on January 20, 2017.

Withdrawn nominations

Trump withdrew the nomination of Ryan Bounds on July 19, 2018. Trump nominated Bounds to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on September 7, 2017. Bounds would have been the 24th appeals court judge and the 45th federal judge nominated by Trump to be confirmed.

The withdrawal came after Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced that he needed more information before he could support Bounds' nomination. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) supported Scott's decision and indicated he too would vote against the nominee.

Grassley and Rep Greg Walden (R-Ore.) disagreed with Trump’s withdrawal of Bounds’ nomination.

Vacancies

The federal judiciary currently has 151 vacancies. Of those 151 vacancies, 67 have no nominee. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 30 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump’s first term. There are 84 pending nominations to seats tracked by Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count.

Committee action

This month, the Senate Judiciary Committee may decline to meet to report nominees out of committee for a full vote on the Senate floor. According to multiple media outlets, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)  is on vacation in Africa for up to three weeks, meaning the committee would be evenly split along party lines. As such, it would be difficult to report a nominee out of committee unless a Democratic senator chose to vote in favor.

In July, the committee reported out of committee nominee Britt Grant, who received a confirmation vote in the Senate. Six other nominees were reported and will now face confirmation votes:

Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancy information? We figured. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.

Need a daily fix? Our Federal Vacancy Warning System has got you covered with continuing updates on the status of all federal judicial nominees.
Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals Trump has nominated.
A judge you oughta know

Every month, we at Ballotpedia highlight a federal judge or judicial nominee you should know. Right now, we’re taking a closer look at individuals who appeared on a list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees Trump used to select former Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy's successor.

This month, let’s get to know Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She joined the court in 2017 after being nominated by Trump.

Barrett was a member of the faculty at Notre Dame Law School from 2002 to 2017 and practiced law at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C. from 1999 to 2002. She was a law clerk to Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia from 1998 to 1999 and for the Hon. Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1997 to 1998.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Barrett obtained a bachelor's degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. She was awarded the university's Hoynes Prize, which is the law school's highest honor, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.
Looking ahead

Here’s what we’re looking ahead to this month:

  • The Supreme Court is expected to issue orders on August 24.
  • Brett Kavanaugh is scheduled to meet with Donnelly on August 15.
  • Catch the next issue of Bold Justice on September 4!

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Why Bold Justice?

Well, there’s a story behind it, and we’re happy to credit Justice Samuel Alito for the inspiration. Back in October of 2014, Justice Alito joined his fellow Supreme Court Yale Law alumni, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, for a panel as part of the law school’s alumni weekend (video below). During the discussion, the moderator asked the audience if they could guess which of the three justices on the panel served as the inspiration for a coffee house to name one of their blends of coffee, Bold Justice. Justice Alito responded, “Obviously, it’s me.”

He went on to tell the story of how, during his days as a Third Circuit judge, his law clerks participated in a Newark, New Jersey, coffee shop’s year-long promotion wherein if customers sampled every blend for one year, the customers could then create and name a blend of coffee. Justice Alito described Bold Justice as a blend that was “designed for about three o’clock in the afternoon if you’re working and you’re starting to fall asleep, if you have this, it will jolt you awake.” A blend of courts and coffee: sounds perfect to us!

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