President Trump hit another milestone in his efforts to reshape the federal judiciary, with the Senate clearing his 100th judicial nominee Thursday.
The president and Republican-controlled Senate have made judicial nominations a top priority, and the confirmation of Rodolfo Ruiz to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida brought the number of Trump’s judicial appointments into triple digits.
In addition to confirming Ruiz, the Senate is also set to clear two more nominees to federal district courts in Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania. If those two nominations win approval, Trump will have tapped 102 judges to the federal bench.
Trump’s judicial appointments include two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, 37 federal appeals court judges, and 61 federal district court judges.
In anticipation of the milestone, the president lauded the work of the Senate in confirming his judicial nominees, telling attendees of a dinner for the National Day of Prayer on Wednesday that “we’re breaking records.”
While Trump has seen great success in remaking the federal bench, his efforts have been met by resistance from Senate Democrats, who have criticized the president for the lack of diversity among his judicial picks. Trump’s judicial nominees are also young, ensuring they will leave a conservative stamp on the federal courts that will endure for decades.
Democrats attempted to slow the pace of judicial confirmations by using the full 30 hours of debate time for judicial nominees. They have also sought to block nominees by not returning their so-called blue slips to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But Republicans have used their power as the majority party to diminish Democrats’ leverage.
Last month, the GOP-controlled Senate changed the chamber’s rules to speed up confirmation of Trump’s nominees by lessening debate time to two hours.
The Republican leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, former Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and current Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have also said an unreturned blue slip would not preclude nominees to the federal appeals courts from receiving confirmation hearings.
The blue slip is a Senate practice under which home-state senators can voice their support or opposition to a judicial nominee on a blue form. Some previous Judiciary Committee chairman have allowed home-state senators to effectively veto a nominee by not returning their blue slips.
More than three dozen judicial nominees are still awaiting votes on the Senate floor, including two of the president’s picks for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The San Francisco-based court is often the target of Trump’s frustration, as it has ruled against a number of the administration’s policies, and is considered the country’s most liberal appeals court.
But if the Senate approves Trump’s two nominees to the 9th Circuit, it would bring the court closer to parity.
Last month, Trump flipped his first appeals court, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which now has a majority of Republican-appointed judges.
