As the clock ticks, the effort has intensified beyond filling vacancies to creating them: Conservative activists and GOP political insiders are mounting a sotto voce campaign urging older conservative judges to retire now, before it becomes too late for Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to swap them out for younger models.Insider has obtained a list of more than 80 judges that Republican activists have identified as candidates for the pressure campaign.
The list includes Supreme Court shortlisters from GOP administrations of yesteryear, like James Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan-era appointee from the Richmond-based 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals; Frank Easterbrook, another Reagan pick on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals; and Ricardo Hinojosa, a federal judge based in McAllen, Texas, who has been on the bench since 1983.
The bulk of the potential new Trump appointments would fill seats held currently by judges named by President George W. Bush. Nearly 50 judges from the last GOP administration are already eligible for retirement or senior status, and there are also another seven who are on track to meet that criteria before the end of the year.
He would never have achieved that pace if Senate Democrats hadn't overhauled the chamber's rules back in 2013, eliminating the filibuster for federal judges other than the ones who are tapped for the Supreme Court and instead allowing a simple majority for confirmations. Even the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which otherwise has upended schedules across large swaths of the federal government, hasn't made McConnell blink.
“LIBERAL ACTIVIST JUDGES”!!!!
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