Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday urged federal judges who are in their mid-to-late 60s to step aside so that Republicans, increasingly nervous about holding the Senate majority in the November election as they eye President Trump’s poll numbers, can fill the vacancies now.
“This is an historic opportunity,” Graham said. “We’ve put over 200 federal judges on the bench. . . . If you can get four more years, I mean, it would change the judiciary for several generations. So if you’re a circuit judge in your mid-60s, late 60s, you can take senior status, now would be a good time to do that, if you want to make sure the judiciary is right of center.”
Depending on the number of years they have served on the bench, judges who are age 65 and older are eligible to take a reduced workload known as “senior status.”
According to a recent analysis by judicial expert Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution, a total of 66 court of appeals judges are now or will soon be eligible for senior status. Thirty-eight of those judges are Democratic appointees, while 28 are Republican appointees. There are also more than 70 district court vacancies, Wheeler said, although a breakdown of appointees by party was not immediately available.
During his more than three years in office, Trump has remade the federal judiciary, ensuring a conservative tilt for decades. Trump nominees made up 1 in 4 U.S. Circuit Court judges as of the end of 2019, and two of the president’s picks sit on the Supreme Court.
Trump made judicial appointments a key part of his pitch to conservative voters during the 2016 campaign, and as the November election approaches, he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have continued to emphasize the issue.
Trump is likely to face presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in November.
In Thursday’s interview, Hewitt asked Graham whether he could assure judges who take senior status now that their successor “will indeed be confirmed before the election.”
“Well, if you wait, you know, November the 1st, no,” Graham said. “So do it now. . . . I need some time.”
Graham also endorsed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s view that if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs before the November election, the Senate should fill it.
“I think that would be the goal,” Graham said. “I mean, you know, the Merrick Garland situation was a party in the White House and a different party in the Senate. That doesn’t lie here. ... So if a vacancy did occur — and I don’t expect one to, I hope everybody has a long, healthy 2020 on the court — that you would see an effort by Republicans, I’m sure, to fill the vacancy.”
In 2016, McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked the consideration of Garland, President Barack Obama’s third nominee to the Supreme Court. At the time, McConnell said that he was blocking Garland because voters “should have a say in the court’s direction” on Election Day. The move infuriated Democrats, who accused Republicans of abandoning their constitutional duty to advise and consent.
McConnell later argued that opposition parties in control of the Senate do not traditionally confirm high court nominees during presidential election years.
Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.