Third Circuit Tops Key Judicial Vacancies Awaiting Trump

Donald Trump is poised to inherit less than half the vacancies he started with the first time he entered the White House.

Trump benefited from a Republican Senate majority that blocked Barack Obama’s judicial nominees at the tail end of his presidency. This time, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats’ aggressive pursuit of judicial confirmations leaves fewer opportunities for Trump after he returns to office on Jan. 20.

Trump will still be left with key openings, after some of Biden’s nominees didn’t make it through the Senate or Biden simply didn’t name successors to other openings. Other vacancies in states with Republican senators remained open as negotiations to fill those seats stalled or never occurred in the run up to the presidential election.

Third Circuit

The defeat of Adeel Mangi’s nomination to the Third Circuit’s New Jersey vacancy cements a Republican-appointed majority on the court, which currently has four Trump-appointees. Another Delaware-based vacancy will also go to Trump, after Biden never named a nominee for the seat. With Trump’s additional picks, Republican-appointed judges will surpass Democratic-tapped ones, 8-6.

“As Pennsylvania continues to play a decisive role in our national elections, this circuit couldn’t be more important,” said Robert Luther III, a former Trump White House lawyer who prepared judicial nominees for Senate hearings and is now a George Mason University law professor.

Alabama Vacancy

Trump has an opportunity to preserve the Middle District of Alabama’s entirely Trump-tapped active bench.

Courts with solid conservative majorities were sought after venues for conservative litigants looking to increase their chances of prevailing in legal battles against the Biden administration. A court entirely crafted by Trump would skew even further to the right. Trump-appointed judges statistically are considered more conservative than judges appointed by George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush.

Trump’s new pick for the court, which includes Montgomery, would fill the vacancy created by his elevation of Judge Andrew Brasher to the Eleventh Circuit during his first term.

Missouri Seats

Trump can flip the Eastern District of Missouri’s active bench that once had a Democratic-appointee majority, after talks between the Biden administration and Missouri’s Republican senators didn’t produce any nominations. It would thwart what could’ve been a favorable venue for progressive litigants challenging the Trump administration.

Trump’s judges on the St. Louis-based court would replace one Bill Clinton appointee and three Barack Obama appointees. Most of the Republican-appointed judges will have been tapped by Trump, with the exception of George W. Bush appointee Henry Autrey. Republican-appointed judges overall would outnumber one Obama-appointed judge, Brian Wimes, by 8-1.

Florida Openings

Trump stands to create a conservative supermajority in the Middle District of Florida, after negotiations between Biden and the state’s Republican senators only produced one nomination for the court. Trump’s additional appointments at the venue that includes Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tampa would replace one George W. Bush appointee and two Barack Obama appointees. Judge Kathryn Mizelle, who Trump tapped as his youngest first term appointee at 33, has since made headlines after she struck down the national Covid-era mask mandate and recently ruled unconstitutional a key section of the federal law that allows whistleblowers to report wrongdoing.

Trump appointees would outnumber other Republican-tapped judges, who overall would surpass Democratic-appointed active judges, 11-4.

N.C. Seats

Trump can flip two seats held by Democratic-appointed judges in the Middle District of North Carolina to create an active bench of only conservative judges, 4-0, in the Greensboro-based court.

Filling open seats on all district courts, including on the Western District of North Carolina, would give the GOP a near sweep of all the active district court judgeships in the state. That would leave just Obama-tapped judge, Max Cogburn Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina, who reversed his plans to step back upon confirmation of a successor after Trump’s election win.