Maryland Appellate Blog Post on Federal Judicial Vacancies
In a new post on the Maryland Appellate Blog, Steve Keppler offers a useful reminder about federal judicial vacancy problem and offers some proposals for addressing it. As he suggests, “the next six months provide a window of time when Congress can reform judicial policy for the next president — before we have much of an idea who the next president will be.”
After a useful reminder about just how understaffed the federal bench is, he offers these three recommendations:
- Create New Judgeships for the Next President to Fill
- Encourage More Appellate Judges to Take Senior Status and to Maintain a Higher Workload.
- Don’t Make Consensus Nominees Wait for Floor Votes.
The first has the support of the Judicial Conference, which issued a set of Judgeship Recommendations to that effect. The second is a reform of an already growing practice of employing senior judges in a more active role. The third recommends a change to Senate practice that would encourage the President to nominate consensus nominees. All interesting proposals with some opportunity to side-step political barriers and address the issue.
You can read details of these proposals at the Maryland Appellate Blog: Three Things Congress Should Do in 2015 About Judges.