The Data Shows That Federal Judges Are Going Out Of Their Way To Not Pull An RBG
Doesn't look like Clarence will be stepping down this term, huh?
No, this isn’t going to be a dig at the late justice’s decision to only hire one Black clerk during her decades-spanning tenure at the Supreme Court or the improprietous optics concerning her deep friendship with the guy who spat furiously at gay marriage being a thing or said that Black people might not belong at elite universities. No, this is about RBG’s apparent decision to wait it out for Hilary Clinton’s presidency that went the way of Godot. Judges are trying to avoid that. From Reuters:
Federal judges are increasingly basing their decisions to retire from active service on which party controls the White House rather than on nonpartisan or financial considerations that for decades were bigger factors, according to a new study.
Xiao Wang, a clinical assistant professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, in an article published in the Minnesota Law Review this week said a data analysis confirms that judges are taking “senior status” in a politically strategic manner now more than ever.
Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for life-tenured judges over the age of 65 who have completed at least 15 years on the federal bench. Presidents may name new full-time judges to fill those judges’ seats.
Goes to show that the “Balls and Strikes” branch of the government has had a game plan for a while now. Readers of Above the Law know that we’ve been openly suspicious of the claims that the judiciary has been apolitical for a while now — it has gotten to the point that even the most risk averse of the smarts — the academics — are coming to the same conclusions.
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Wang wrote that for years the academic consensus was that judges took senior status for nonpartisan reasons, such as to take a step back, bring in a new judge to address rising caseloads or because of financial considerations.
…
[U]nder George W. Bush, 72% of federal judges seeking senior status over his eight years in office had been appointed by a Republican president. More than 57% of the 303 judges who went senior under Democratic President Barack Obama were Democratic appointees.
The highest rate was during former President Donald Trump’s four years, when 110 of the 135 judges taking senior status were appointed by fellow Republicans, or 81.4%. That helped Trump make a near-record 234 judicial appointments.
About 65% of judges taking senior status during President Joe Biden’s administration through July have been Democratic appointees. Several of their seats are now held by Biden’s 97 confirmed judicial nominees. Wang wrote that the results suggest “that Republican-appointed judges have acted in a significantly more politically strategic manner than their Democratic-appointed counterparts.”
In short — the game is rigged and Republicans are playing it better. The party claiming voter fraud is doing a phenomenal job of contributing to the counter-majoritarian problem… you know… that little issue where the election of judges allows for the circumvention of the democratic process. Them’s the breaks. Libs need to do better and stop defaulting to they go low, we go high — moral victories are for minor league coaches. If they don’t want even more Amy Coney Barretts running rampant in the judiciary causing rights erosion and increased gun access, they’d better play ball.
Completely unrelated, shouts out to Justice Breyer!
Federal Judges’ Retirements Increasingly Politically Timed, Study Finds [Reuters]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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