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The Federal Vacancy Count 2/28/2018
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February 28, 2018
Welcome to the Federal Vacancy Count for February 2018! The Federal Vacancy Count tracks vacancies, nominations, and confirmations to all United States Article III federal courts, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the district courts for the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands.
This month's edition includes nominations, confirmations, and vacancies from January 31, 2018, to February 28, 2018.[1][2] You can find Vacancy Counts from past months here.
What's a vacancy?
A vacancy occurs when a judge resigns, retires, takes senior status, or passes away. Article III judges are appointed for life terms. Article III judges refer to judges who serve on courts authorized by Article III of the Constitution, which created and enumerated the powers of the judiciary. Unless a judge is impeached and removed from office—something that has occurred only eight times in the history of the federal judiciary—it is entirely up to the judge how long they remain on the court. When judges decide to leave active duty, they may either retire completely from the court or take senior status. To take senior status, judges must meet certain age and service requirements. Senior status is a classification for federal judges at all levels who are semi-retired. Senior judges continue to serve on federal courts while hearing a reduced number of cases. Both a decision to retire and a decision to take senior status trigger a vacancy.
The process of filling a vacancy is prescribed by the Constitution. The president nominates a candidate, who then must be confirmed by the United States Senate.
Vacancy Count for February 28, 2018
The vacancy warning level remained at yellow this month. The total vacancy percentage was 16.7 percent, and there were 149 vacancies out of 890 judicial positions.
A breakdown of the vacancies at each level can be found in the table below. For a more detailed look at the vacancies on the federal courts, click here.
Vacancies by court
| Court | # of Seats | Vacancies |
| Supreme Court | 9 | 0% or 0 vacancies |
| Appeals Courts | 179 | 9.50% or 17 vacancies |
| District Courts | 673 | 18.42% or 124 vacancies |
| International Trade | 9 | 22.2% or 2 vacancies |
| All Article III life-term judicial positions | 870 | 16.1% or 140 vacancies |
New vacancies
The following judges vacated their active statuses, creating Article III life-term judicial vacancies. As Article III judicial positions, these vacancies must be filled by a nomination from the president. Nominations are then subject to confirmation on the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.
- Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
- John Houston, United States District Court for the Southern District of California
- Christina Armijo, United States District Court for the District of New Mexico
- Ron Clark, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
New nominations
President Donald Trump announced the nominations of nine additional candidates for Article III seats:
- Mark Bennett, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- Michael Scudder, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
- Eric Tostrud, nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
- Peter Phipps, nominated to the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
- Thomas Kleeh, nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia
- Nancy E. Brasel, nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
- Amy St. Eve, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
- Andrew Oldham, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
- Charles Williams, nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa
New confirmations
The United States Senate confirmed one additional nominee this month:
- Elizabeth Branch to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, on a recorded vote of 73-23.
As of February 28, 2018, the Senate has confirmed 25 of President Trump’s judicial nominees.
Monthly map
See also
- United States federal courts
- Current federal judicial vacancies
- Six-month checkup on federal judicial vacancies during Trump's first term
- Judicial vacancies during the Trump administration
- The Trump administration on federal courts
Footnotes
- ↑ As of February 2018, Ballotpedia's Federal Vacancy Count includes nominees to all courts in which nominees are commissioned to serve a life-term, as well as the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the district courts for the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands. The map used in this report, however, includes information from U.S. district courts.
- ↑ Four judges on U.S. district courts are commissioned to serve ten-year terms on their respective courts. These are judges to the District Court of Guam, the District Court of the Virgin Islands, and the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
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