Here Is the Judicial Nominations Landscape That Donald Trump Will Inherit

Donald Trump won the 2024 election in decisive fashion on Tuesday, thus blessing the president who already appointed 234 federal judges during his first term—the most of any one-term president since Jimmy Carter—with four additional years to stock the bench with conservative ideologues who will be deciding cases for decades to come. Republicans also won control of the U.S. Senate, which means that beginning on January 20, 2025, the GOP will enjoy at least two years of full control over the nomination and confirmation process.

Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, Senate Democrats have confirmed 213 of his nominees, many of whom brought badly-needed professional and/or demographic diversity to a federal judiciary that generally lacks both. However, 30 of Biden’s nominees to vacant seats—25 at the district court level, and five at the appeals court level—are still pending in the Senate. If Democrats are unable to confirm these nominees by the end of Biden’s term, the nominations will expire and the vacancies will be Trump’s to fill.

Over the next four years, roughly 250 sitting federal judges will become eligible to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement that creates a judicial vacancy and allows the president to appoint a full-time replacement. Between deaths, retirements, and assumptions of senior status, by the time Trump leaves office for the second time, about half of all lower court judges could be his picks.

With all this in mind, here is an overview of what Democrats can do with control of the White House and the Senate while they still have it—and a preview of the power to remake the federal judiciary that Trump and the Republicans will inherit in about ten weeks.

Federal District Courts

There are currently 25 pending nominees to federal district court vacancies. Of these, the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to advance 12 out of committee. The next step in their nominations is cloture, a procedural vote that clears the way for an up-or-down confirmation vote in the full Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already filed for cloture on two—April Perry, nominated to a Northern District of Illinois judgeship, and Jonathan Hawley, nominated to the Central District of Illinois. Their votes will likely take place next week.

Of the 12 nominees who have made it out of committee, Schumer has yet to file for cloture on the other 10. Once he does so, he also needs to ensure that when he schedules the up-or-down vote, he’ll have a majority of senators present who will vote to confirm. In practice, Republicans are less likely to fight district court candidates, and understandably, Schumer will prioritize these confirmations during the lame-duck session. Thus, Democrats will probably be able to confirm all 12 of these committee-approved nominees before the current Congress ends. 

Seven of the 25 pending nominees have had their Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, but have not made it out of committee, which rejected one and has yet to vote on the remaining six. To move the (non-rejected) confirmations along, committee chair Dick Durbin will likely hold one or two additional business meetings in the lame-duck session, during which Democrats should be able to advance these nominees out of committee and on to the cloture process. Again, Democrats will probably be able to confirm all six nominees before the current Congress ends.

Finally, of the 25 pending district court nominees, five are still awaiting their Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Of these nominations, two are unlikely to proceed due to blue slips, a Senate tradition that allows senators to block district court nominees from their home states. In theory, Durbin can dispense with this tradition at any time; in practice, as chair, Durin has continued to honor blue slips as Senate Judiciary Committee chair, effectively handing his Republican colleagues a veto power over Biden nominees they do not like. In addition, the committee has not scheduled a hearing or otherwise taken action on a third nominee in ten months, and is unlikely to suddenly do so now.

Even setting aside blue slip-related challenges, Senate Democrats will have a difficult time confirming these nominees, because the calendar is so condensed. Even if Durbin were to schedule confirmation hearings next week, after such hearings take place, there is typically a one-week holdover period before the committee votes on a nominee—a vote that typically takes place the week following the holdover week. Between these waiting periods and Senate recesses—the current Congress formally ends on January 3, and lawmakers are set to adjourn for the holidays on December 20—there may simply not be enough time to get these done.

All told, Senate Democrats will likely confirm up to 21 pending district court nominees between now and the holidays. The remaining vacancies will be filled by President-elect Trump.

Federal Courts of Appeals

There are effectively six federal appeals court vacancies. Two seats are currently vacant, and one seat will become vacant on January 15, 2025, the effective retirement date of incumbent Third Circuit Judge Kent Jordan. Finally, three appeals court judges have announced that they will take senior status pending confirmation of a successor—so, these three “vacancies” will arise if the Senate confirms a nominee to replace them.

Biden has announced nominees for five of these seats. All five have had their Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. One, Fourth Circuit nominee Ryan Park, is still awaiting his post-hearing committee vote, but again, Senate Democrats will likely advance his nomination once Durbin schedules a meeting at which the committee can do so. Another, Third Circuit nominee Adeel Mangi, was approved by the committee in January, but is unlikely to be confirmed by the full Senate, thanks to a vile Islamophobic smear campaign that prompted several Senate Democrats to announce that they’d withhold their support. 

As with district court nominees, filing for cloture allows Schumer to schedule an up-or-down confirmation vote after a brief waiting period—for circuit nominees, 30 hours. Senate Republicans are more likely to fight appeals court nominees than district court nominees, which complicates the logistics a bit, since Schumer needs to be sure he’ll have the numbers to confirm before he puts a vote on the schedule. However, again, you can expect Democrats to prioritize this work, and to confirm four of these five nominees—not Mangi—in the next ten weeks.

Biden has not announced a nominee to replace Jordan, who announced his retirement back in May 2024. President-elect Trump will fill this seat, as well as the seat to which Biden nominated Mangi.

Supreme Court

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are 76 and 74 years old, respectively. Thomas may be somewhat reluctant to leave the bench—confirmed at age 43, he once told a clerk that he intended to “make [liberals’] lives miserable for 43 years,” too—but there have been hints in recent years that Alito would retire to allow a Republican president to name his replacement. 

Trump doesn’t yet have a Supreme Court shortlist for his second term. Based on previous shortlists and on proposed shortlists published by conservative organizations, some names to get familiar with are James Ho, a Trump appointee to the Fifth Circuit; Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group; and Lawrence VanDyke, a Trump appointee to the Ninth Circuit, whose former colleagues once described him to the American Bar Association as “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-today practice.”