Selecting Lower Court Judges in the Senate Lame Duck Session

When Congress reconvened in November, Donald Trump had won a second term in the White House and Republicans had secured a majority in the upper chamber. The federal judiciary thus became a salient point of contention in the Senate lame duck session. During Trump’s initial four years as chief executive, he and the Republican chamber majority rejected or substantially deemphasized longstanding requirements and customs of judicial selection to fill all the levels of the federal courts with young, highly conservative jurists, including thirteen whom they seated after Trump had lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. These phenomena threatened ideological balance and many diversity parameters on the federal courts while undercutting public confidence in the selection process, impartial administration of justice by the courts, and the rule of law.

Moreover, Trump seems poised to additionally depart from venerable selection norms in his second term, as certain observers are encouraging the new administration to nominate and confirm jurists who will be loyal to Trump and promote his political agenda. Therefore, during this year’s lame duck session, the razor-thin Democratic Senate majority has redoubled efforts to safeguard the integrity of the judiciary by confirming highly qualified, mainstream judicial nominees who increase experiential, ideological, racial, gender, and sexual orientation diversity. This article suggests how President Biden and senators can seat accomplished, centrist nominees during the remainder of the lame duck session.