President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat. And what should President Trump be thanking them for? Quite simply they have handed him one of the biggest victories any president could claim in the past 45 years.

Yes, this has happened even as one of the most widely covered stories of the past year has been President Trump's difficulties in working with Congress. The growing rift between him and Republican Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker alone has made headlines for months. For a U.S. president to have this many public feuds with senators from his own party this early in his presidency is really unprecedented and makes for hot news copy.

But that story ignores a bigger and longer-lasting development in the federal judiciary. That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench.

Late last week, Grassley decided not to honor a Senate tradition of holding up hearings for judicial nominees who aren't cleared by their own home state senators. That tradition is known as the "blue slip courtesy" born out of time before nationwide communication technology when a given state's senators had access to much more information about nominees than their colleagues from the rest of the country. Grassley correctly noted that Democrats were now trying to use the blue slips tradition to replace the filibuster, and he's having none of that. As recently as last month, the Democrats and much of the news media's punditry were expecting Grassley, who is no fan of the president, to keep the blue slip tradition in place. But Grassley gave Trump this very special gift instead.

And that brings us to the Democrat who provided the initial generous source of President Trump's solid triumph: Former Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat, Harry Reid. Reid is a major reason this good fortune has befallen President Trump because Reid was the one who killed the filibuster rule for judicial nominees in 2013. And when he killed it, it was gone for good.

Republicans were powerless to stop a series of President Obama's judicial nominees after that. That is, until they won control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. The GOP may have failed at using that majority to achieve much, especially making even a dent in Obamacare. But they were able to freeze the Obama nomination process in its tracks, most notably by delaying and eventually killing Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court.

That long period of confirmation obstruction has given President Trump a huge number of seats to fill; twice as many as President Obama's also large number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. The Christian Science Monitor reports this is likely the most vacancies for a president to fill in 40 years. And the Trump team hasn't been wasting much time.

For those who believe President Trump won the 2016 election thanks to a series of Democratic Party errors, this is cut from the exact same cloth.

Consider that as of November 3rd, 13 Trump nominees to the courts have been confirmed this year. The big name is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, but we also have eight new federal appeals court judges, and four new U.S. district court judges. President Trump has now already surpassed the last four presidents' records for first-year judifical confirmations. And he's even tied President Ronald Reagan number of appeals court confirmations in year one.

But this isn't just about sheer numbers, it's about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush's two terms in office.

In case the importance of making an impact on the courts is lost on anyone, just note the many setbacks the Trump administration has suffered this year alone thanks to the courts. Delays and changes to the White House-imposed travel and immigration bans have grabbed the most attention. But the administration is also dealing with judicial push back and other potential hurdles on everything from its opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger to its transgender military ban.

Now fast forward a couple of years where the Trump judicial appointment surge will have set in across the federal system. Just for this administration alone, that could make a huge difference. And for conservative causes and cases over time, it will be even more significant.

Sure, the tax reform and Obamacare repeal bills may be jeopardized by internal spats between the GOP and the White House. But real history is being made in the courts all thanks to a bad bet made by Senator Reid and remarkable cooperation between the Trump team, Senator Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While the fights with other senators like Flake et al may grab headlines, these judicial confirmations will have a much bigger impact.

And unless the Democrats win control of the Senate in 2018, there's nothing they can do about it.

So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump. An unlikely set of benefactors has truly given him the political gift that will keep on giving.

Link

Rejoining the Federalist Society seems to be in order.

Re: "So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump."

Us folks on SigForum, too.

Good news indeed!

This is the sweetest part of it all. If he replaces activist judges with impartial ones alone, that's a victory. If they also lean conservative, or even better they are states rights/constitutionalists heavy mix. If we can push through fair judges bound by our country's founding principles and documents for the next four, or God willing eight years, then the next 30 years look a lot brighter.

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Originally posted by Skins2881:
This is the sweetest part of it all. If he replaces activist judges with impartial ones alone, that's a victory. If they also lean conservative, or even better they are states rights/constitutionalists heavy mix. If we can push through fair judges bound by our country's founding principles and documents for the next four, or God willing eight years, then the next 30 years look a lot brighter.

I agree.

Just offsetting the number of extreme left leaning ones, alone, is a yuge and lasting win.

Awesome news.

J Allen, I most sincerely appreciate your many contributions to help my understanding of so many aspects of Government.

Thank you Sir!

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Originally posted by Ed Fowler:
J Allen, I most sincerely appreciate your many contributions to help my understanding of so many aspects of Government.

Thank you Sir!

It’s fascinating to peek inside the sausage factory once in a while, isn’t it?

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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Re: "So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump."

Us folks on SigForum, too.

Yeah, I'd wager that the most thankful are the conservative little guys like us.

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Originally posted by JALLEN:

...That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench...

That's my Senator! The other is Joni Ernst, also (R). Let's not forget during the last year of the Osama Regime it was Chuck who did not schedule hearings for Osama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and now we have Neil Gorsuch.

Chuck, you rock (for an old guy)!

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Originally posted by Sigmund:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

...That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench...

That's my Senator! The other is Joni Ernst, also (R). Let's not forget during the last year of the Osama Regime it was Chuck who did not schedule hearings for Osama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and now we have Neil Gorsuch.

Chuck, you rock (for an old guy)!

A Senator since 1981! Maybe term limits aren’t always a wonderful thing.

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Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Re: "So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump."

Us folks on SigForum, too.

Yeah, I'd wager that the most thankful are the conservative little guys like us.

Including me!!!

I recommend watching WH Counsel Don McGahn's speech to the Federalist Society convention from November 17, C-SPAN link here.

The Trump Administration--under McGahn, and with the strong cooperation of Grassley and McConnell, will be placing a huge number of judges on Federal courts, and their choices so far have been fantastic.

There is also a "plot", in a paper written by Steven Calabresi of the Federalist Society and Ed Whelan, to "pack" (leftists' terms) the Federal courts by creating many more judgeships to deal with what Calabresi calls a crisis in the courts, in which many if not most decisions are written by law clerks and never reviewed by a judge.

What's even better is it's an article on CNBC.

Does that stand for Conservative NBC now? LOL

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in which many if not most decisions are written by law clerks and never reviewed by a judge.

It s that true? WTH...

And how are more judgeships created? Based on polulation, local caseload, do they need to be created by an act of congress or could the executive do it?

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
This is the sweetest part of it all. If he replaces activist judges with impartial ones alone, that's a victory. If they also lean conservative, or even better they are states rights/constitutionalists heavy mix. If we can push through fair judges bound by our country's founding principles and documents for the next four, or God willing eight years, then the next 30 years look a lot brighter.

We could use some constitutionalists on the bench.

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Originally posted by mbinky:

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in which many if not most decisions are written by law clerks and never reviewed by a judge.

It s that true? WTH...

And how are more judgeships created? Based on polulation, local caseload, do they need to be created by an act of congress or could the executive do it?

ARTICLE III
SECTION 1
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:

quote:

in which many if not most decisions are written by law clerks and never reviewed by a judge.

It s that true? WTH...

And how are more judgeships created? Based on polulation, local caseload, do they need to be created by an act of congress or could the executive do it?

Congress authorizes the judgeships. Certain districts handle more cases. Southern District of California, in San Diego has grown from a couple of judges when I was admitted to several dozen now. Drug smuggling, immigration, the busiest district in the country last I heard.

As to decisions, it is hard to say. I certainly don’t know of any. It’s hard to imagine, certainly at the appellate level. I think what is meant is that decisions are made by the judge and the opinions written by law clerks. From the accounts I’ve seen by judges and clerks, opinions go through a number of drafts, circulated among the other judges on the panel, critiqued, edited as needed, depending on the complexity and novelty of the issues, whether there are joinders, concurrences, dissents, etc. I don’t doubt that clerks do initial drafts and rewrites after discussions, input from that clerk’s judge, and clerks often “recommend” outcomes.

At the district court level, it is still hard to imagine decisions made without judge input at all. There is more more deciding to do, trials, motions, rulings on procedural matters, etc.

Clerkships last a year, sometimes two, occasionally one clerks for a judge one year and is hired for a higher court judge the next. It’s a tremendous resume enhancer, very prestigious. I would think that a clerk who let it be known that he decided certain cases would risk excommunication, given the secrecy, especially at the Supreme Court level. I can see some locker room talk, “when I clerked for old Judge Dunderhead, he was so senile, he couldn’t decide what to have for lunch. We clerks did all the deciding.”

Who knows what reality is.