Obama’s Lasting Influence On U.S. Judiciary

He hasn’t always made the judicial appointments his far-left supporters would like, but President Obama has had a lasting impact on the American judiciary. And, Michael Grunwald details in a lengthy piece in The Atlantic, he faced unprecedented obstructionism in doing so. During his time as president, Obama has appointed 329 judges – more than one third of the judiciary – to lifetime jobs, and has flipped the partisan balance of the nation’s 13 courts of appeals. Obama has also altered the diversity of the nation’s benches: 43 percent of his judges have been women, 36 percent have been non-white, and 11 are openly gay. He has also put more former public defenders on the appeals courts than all his predecessors combined. However, judicial vacancies have more than doubled in the Obama era. There are 29 understaffed courts that have been designated as “judicial emergencies” – up from 12 when Obama took office. That indicates the unprecedented level of obstruction that Obama has faced. Only three district court nominees had ever been filibustered before Obama took office, but it happened to 20 of his nominees. But one GOP Senate aide who handles judicial nominations called for perspective: “I keep hearing about this ‘new level of vitriol,’ but have some perspective. I mean, Aaron Burr shot a guy. I think the Republic will survive this.”