Judicial Retirements Start to Pick Up After Slow Start for Trump

The pace of federal judges announcing their retirements is picking up after a lull in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

In a three week span, four district judges told the White House of plans to step down entirely or take a form of partial retirement known as senior status that allows the president to choose their successor.

Those include two judges in the Northern District of Texas, including recent Chief Judge David Godbey; Cathy Seibel of the Southern District of New York; and Mitchell Goldberg of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. All are appointees of George W. Bush.

Federal judges had been retiring at a historically slow pace for the first half of this year, most strikingly among those appointed by Republicans Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. A change in control over the White House usually induces a wave of judicial retirements.

That pace threatened Trump’s plans to continue replacing an older and more moderate generation of Republican-appointees with younger conservative jurists.

Judges don’t typically say why they opt to serve past the point when they qualify for retirement. But the Trump administration’s early actions and rhetoric, including its open hostility toward the courts and judges who rule against the president’s agenda, are factoring into those deliberations, former federal judges told Bloomberg Law in June.

Brookings Institution scholar Russell Wheeler wrote last month that the low rate of retirements appears to be a “clear exception to recent patterns,” and the Trump-related rhetorical attacks on judges “have been serious enough” to prompt a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump started the year with at least 39 judgeships and six future seats to fill, according to US courts data. By July 31, that increased to 48 current vacancies and 10 future vacancies—before the quick succession of retirement announcements in August.

Wheeler told Bloomberg Law it was too soon say that the recent announcements signaled a significant turn around. In comparison to the same time frame for Joe Biden and Trump in his first term, “those are very small numbers on which to make comparative assessments,” he said.

As for the current pool of nearly two dozen retirement-eligible, Republican-appointed appeals court judges, most could’ve retired during Trump’s first term, so it’s unclear if they’ll ultimately do so this time. Only two have made announced senior status plans: Diane Sykes of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Sandra Segal Ikuta of the Ninth Circuit.

But it’s not unusual for judges to stick around past eligibility age, especially those who aren’t faced with health concerns or other urgent considerations.