2 federal judges have changed their minds about senior status; will 2 appeals judges follow suit?
Two Democratic-appointed federal judges have announced that they no longer plan to take senior status after President-elect Donald Trump won a second term in the White House. (Image from Shutterstock)
After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term in the White House, two Democratic-appointed federal judges announced that they no longer plan to take senior status.
The reversal means that there will not be two additional vacancies for Trump to fill when he takes office, report Reuters, Law360, Law.com and CNN.
The two judges are:
• U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. Cogburn had announced his plans to take senior status after his successor was confirmed in 2022, but Biden did not choose a replacement. Any nominee would have needed the approval of North Carolina’s two Republican U.S. senators under a U.S. Senate custom of blue-slip approval.
• U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. Marbley had notified Biden of plans to retire in October 2023, according to the Columbus Dispatch and Reuters. Biden had not nominated a replacement, which would have needed the support of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, who’s currently one of Ohio’s two senators. The other senator is Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Judges can take senior status, which allows them to reduce their caseload, if they are older than age 65 and have been on the bench at least 15 years, Reuters explains.
The judges’ decisions come amid a deal between Democrats and Republicans in which the Senate won’t hold votes on four of Biden’s appeals court nominees while advancing the president’s district court nominees, according to the Associated Press and Bloomberg Law.
The deal was made after Republicans used “stalling tactics” to hold up judicial confirmations, according to Bloomberg Law.
The deal gives Republicans a chance to fill seats on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia and the 1st Circuit at Boston. The two other appellate judgeships are not yet officially open because the judges made their transition to senior status contingent on confirmation of a successor.
Those two judges are Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch of the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati and Judge James Andrew Wynn of the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is worried about the possibility, according to CNN’s reporting on his comments.
“Never before has a circuit judge unretired after a presidential election,” McConnell said. “It’s literally unprecedented. And to create such a precedent would fly in the face of a rare bipartisan compromise on the disposition of these vacancies.”
