With the confirmation of Barbara Lagoa today, the number of judges appointed by Republican presidents versus Democratic presidents is now greater on three federal circuit courts than when President Trump took office.  Last week, the Second Circuit "flipped" from majority Democratic-appointed to majority Republican-appointed with the confirmation of Steve Menashi, and Judge Lagoa's confirmation today "flipped" the Eleventh Circuit.  As Ed Whelan wrote:

With the confirmation of Robert Luck to the Eleventh Circuit today, 165 of President Trump's superb judicial nominees have been confirmed by the Senate.  These judges who support and respect the rule of law and interpret the text of the Constitution as written are changing the federal courts.  As Carrie Severino writes:

Yesterday, President Trump celebrated the 158th judge nominated by him confirmed by the Senate. Here are some statistics:

The American Bar Association has shown bias so extreme that some of its leaders are leaving or complaining of their evaluation of Ninth Circuit nominee Lawrence VanDyke.  While some of their not-qualified rating is at best subjective and biased, some of it seems to be based on an outright subversion of what he said:

The ABA letter falsely claims that Lawrence VanDyke "would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community." In fact, he flatly told the secret ABA evaluator (Marcia Davenport) that he would be fair to all litigants.

— Mike Davis (@mrddmia) October 30, 2019

Many experts have concluded last night’s CNN Democratic Presidential debate was won by Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Moreover many “conservatives” liked Mayor Pete.  However, on the issue that RNLA has been tracking- the candidate’s positions on judicial nominees and court packing- Mayor Pete was again a trainwreck last night. His position last night:

Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. 

Liberal extremists and some Democrats are always finding reasons to oppose President Trump’s judicial nominees.  The reality is they are usually not mad for substantive reasons, but for political or worse reasons.  And these extremists won’t tolerate any dissent.  For example, as Thomas Jipping writes in Democrats take partisanship against judicial nominees to new level in Trump era:

The judicial confirmation process has gotten so twisted, so fast, that the Left is starting to eat its own. Freshman Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), for example, has already been attacked by progressives for supporting too many Trump judicial nominees. Yet one-third of her judicial confirmation votes this year have been NO.

To put that in perspective, it took the 10 longest-serving senators in American history a combined total of 135 years to cast as many votes against judicial nominees as Sinema has cast in less than one. Still, it’s not enough to satisfy the left.

Many have long believed that Democrats use race as a political weapon, especially against those of a protected class.  This has long been part of judicial nominations politics in particular.  Form the “high tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas during the George H.W. Bush administration to the fact that Senator Dick Durbin led opposition to Miguel Estrada during the George W. Bush administration for the racist reason that he did not want a Republican to nominate the first Hispanic to be on the Supreme Court.  Now comes another test for the Democrats. 

Today President Donald Trump nominated the first openly gay person to a federal circuit court, Patrick Bumatay.  Bumatay is also a minority and most importantly an outstanding nominee for the Ninth Circuit.  His background is very impressive.

As we celebrate Constitution Day today, it is worth remembering that the Founders carefully wrote the Constitution to ensure that our third branch of government was independent through mechanisms such as life tenure, the prohibition against diminution of salary, and the nomination and confirmation mechanism itself, and that judicial independence is what preserves the Constitution and our system of government.  

Yet many liberals now want to undermine the independence of the judiciary because judges do not always reach the outcomes they desire to advance their progressive policy goals.  

Or perhaps more accurately, they are attempting to redefine judicial independence to mean a judiciary that advances progressive policy goals and interests.  

The left is again regurgitating the vomit of fake accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  And the Democrats running for President are ready to impeach Justice Kavanaugh.  Of course, there is no evidence for the allegations and it is important to begin with what the goal is.  As Paul Mirengoff writes over at Powerline:  

The left has managed to keep Anita Hill’s trivial and uncorroborated allegations against Clarence Thomas alive and talked about for nearly 30 years. Thus, it’s not surprising that the left is still out to smear Brett Kavanaugh along similar lines. The focus now is on how Kavanaugh behaved, or is alleged to have behaved, towards women at parties during his freshman year at Yale 35 years (or so) ago.

Yesterday marked an impressive milestone for the Senate and Trump Administration, the 150th new judge was confirmed during the Trump Administration:

Six district court nominees won confirmation Wednesday, bringing the president’s total number of appointed judges to the lower federal courts to 105. Mr. Trump has also appointed 43 circuit court nominees and two Supreme Court justices since taking office.

The pace has far outdone President Obama, who only saw 20 circuit court nominees and 74 district court judges confirmed during the same period of time. Mr. Obama, though, like Mr. Trump had two Supreme Court appointments within his first three years.