Authors

Donald F. McGahn II

A Brief History of Judical Appointments from the Last 50 Years Through the Trump Administration

Abstract

Thank you so much for that kind introduction. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I am going to talk about the confirmation process generally. There is no better place to talk about it than here. Let me begin with some numbers and statistics, before I turn to the main thrust of my talk, to give some context as to what recent Presidents have done with respect to judicial appointments. President Trump has appointed two Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett of Appeals; twenty-nine so far have been confirmed. The Senate Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, has already said they will all be confirmed assuming he has the votes. So for comparison purposes, let’s use forty-two as our number. As for District Court nominees, he has made over 109. So that is over 150 judicial nominations in less than two years.

Repository Citation

Donald F. McGahn II, A Brief History of Judical Appointments from the Last 50 Years Through the Trump Administration, 61 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 815 (2020), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol61/iss3/5