Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count 4/20/2011
April 20, 2011
By Joshua Meyer-Gutbrod
- For a District by District break down, see: Federal Court Vacancy Warning System
The current vacancy warning level for the U.S. Federal courts is set at Yellow and is unchanged from the last two weeks. Approximately 10.5% of the total Article III posts are currently left unfilled. The vacancy information for the various court levels is as follows:
| Key: | |
| (Percentage of seats vacant.) | |
| 0% | 1%-9% |
| 10%-24% | 25%-40% |
| More than 40% | |
| Supreme Court | 0% or no vacancies |
| Appeals Courts | 9% or 17 vacancies |
| District Courts | 10.9% or 74 vacancies |
There are currently 9 Supreme Court posts, 179 appellate court posts and 680 district court posts for a total of 868 Article III judges. This count includes three temporary posts, one each in the Northern District of Alabama, District of Arizona, and the Central District of California. There are currently 49 pending appointments in the Senate leaving 47% of the vacant posts without an appointment. So far this year there have been 17 confirmations.
Senate hearings and meetings
April 13, 2011
The Senate Judiciary Committee held scheduled hearings on April 13, 2011 for the following judicial nominees:
- Henry Floyd, Fourth Circuit
- Nelva Gonzales Ramos, Southern District of Texas
- Richard Brooke Jackson, District of Colorado
- Sara Lynn Darrow, Central District of Illinois
To watch the webcast of the hearings, please see: Hearing, 4/13/2011
April 14, 2011
At the business meeting on April 14, 2011 the senate considered and held over the appointment of Bernice Donald. Donald was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit by President Obama on December 1, 2010.[1]
2011 in review
Due to the inactivity by the Senate and the President this week with regard to federal judicial appointments, we would like to take the opportunity to look that this year in review. So far this year congress has confirmed 17 nominations. All of those nominations were originally submitted last year and were returned to the president in December due to the Senate elections and the new congress entering. In addition, so far this year President Obama has made twenty additional appointments. These are added to the forty-two appointments which were resubmitted from last year for a total of fifty-two appointments made by President Obama.
Contrasting these numbers against the number of judges to transition to senior status reveals the progress made so far this year in filling the posts of the federal judiciary. Seventeen posts have been filled this year through judicial confirmations and fifteen additional judges have transitioned to senior status, leaving a net of +2 posts that have been filled from last year.[2]
See also
Footnotes
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