Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count 11/27/2013

Key: (Numbers indicate % of seats vacant.) 0% 1%-9% 10%-24% 25%-40% More than 40%

November 27, 2013

By Courtney Collins

This week's Federal Courts, Empty Benches: The Wednesday Vacancy Count includes nominations, confirmations and vacancies from November 20, 2013 to November 26, 2013. Nominations, confirmations and vacancies occurring on November 27th will be reflected in the December 4th report.

The vacancy warning level remains at yellow this week after no new vacancies and no confirmations. The vacancy percentage remained at 10.7%. There were no new nominations this week, allowing the total number of nominees waiting for confirmation to remain at 52. The number of vacancies of Article III judges remained at 93 out of 865. A breakdown of the vacancies on each level can be found in the table below. For a more detailed look at the vacancies on the federal courts, see our Federal Court Vacancy Warning System.

Vacancies by court

Court	# of Seats	Vacancies
Supreme Court	9	0% or no vacancies
Appeals Courts	179	10.1% or 18 vacancies
District Courts	677	11.1% or 75 vacancies
All Judges	865	10.7% or 93 vacancies

Filibuster reform

In the wake of three nominees for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit being blocked, the U.S. Senate has changed the filibuster rules for presidential nominations. The Senate voted 52-48 on Thursday, November 21, 2013 to change the filibuster rules that required 60 votes to place a cloture (a time limit on consideration) on presidential nominees. The change, widely referred to as the "Nuclear Option," now allows a simple majority to bring a nominee to cloture, and since nominees only need a simple majority to be confirmed, it effectively fast-tracks nominees once they reach the full Senate, should the Senate majority and the President be of like minds on the candidate. The new rules affect appeals and district court judicial nominees; they do not change the filibuster rules on nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States. This change leaves the Senate minority one avenue to block nominations, the blue slip, but it isn't as effective as the filibuster was. The blue slip is a practice that began in 1917. It required one senator from the state that the nominee is nominated for to sign off on their Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The blue slip policy is controlled by the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson and currently requires both senators from the state to "blue slip" the nominee. Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy on protecting the minority's rights and the changes to the filibuster: “ I have always believed in the Senate’s unique protection of the minority party, even when Democrats held a majority in the Senate. When the minority has stood in the way of progress, I have defended their rights and held to my belief that the best traditions of the Senate would win out; that the 100 of us who stand in the shoes of over 310 million Americans would do the right thing. That is why I have always looked skeptically at efforts to change the Senate rules. ” While the changes will allow for faster confirmations of President Barack Obama's nominees, Republican's warn that the changes won't be so popular if they were to take control of the Senate. Top Republican member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles Grassley: “ So the Majority has chosen to take us down this path, the silver lining is that there will come a day when the roles are reversed. When that happens, our side will likely nominate and confirm lower court and Supreme Court nominees with 51 votes, regardless of whether the Democrats actually buy into this fanciful notion that they can demolish the filibuster on lower court nominees and still preserve it for Supreme Court nominees. ”

New vacancies

There were no new vacancies in the past week.

New confirmations

There were no new confirmations in the past week

New nominations

There were no new nominations in the past week.

Weekly map

The weekly map is updated every week and posted here and on the vacancy warning level analysis page.

See also

• United States federal courts

Footnotes