Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words is a great movie. I saw it this weekend and came away with three thoughts, none of which are on his legal philosophy, which is just touched on in the movie. But two of them are very relevant for today.

Today, Ed Whelan posted the four big questions in judicial confirmations for 2020 and answers to the four big questions he posed at the beginning of 2019. The first big question is whether a new Supreme Court vacancy will arise.

Although one did not in 2019, he notes that a nominee for a vacancy that arise this year would likely be confirmed "notwithstanding the ruckus the Left will raise." Looking ahead to 2020, he also asks:

We continue our Top 10 Blog posts for 2019.  Numbers 6-10 are here.  

5. February 7: SENATE JUDICIARY ADVANCES AG NOMINEE BARR AND 44 JUDICIAL NOMINEES

Senate Judiciary Dems playing an awkward game of praising Bill Barr's character and competence while saying why they're voting against him, which boils down to Pres. Trump, with some background of unitary executive theory.

While House Democrats have spent 2019 focused on attacking the President and a slipshod impeachment, President Trump and the United States Senate have focused on remaking the judiciary.  As the Washington Post reports:

Trump nominees make up 1 in 4 U.S. circuit court judges. Two of his picks sit on the Supreme Court. And this past week, as the House voted to impeach the president, the Republican-led Senate confirmed an additional 13 district court judges.

The 13 circuit courts are the second most powerful in the nation, serving as a last stop for appeals on lower court rulings, unless the case is taken up by the Supreme Court. So far, Trump has appointed 50 judges to circuit court benches. Comparatively, by this point in President Obama’s first term, he had confirmed 25. At the end of his eight years, he had appointed 55 circuit judges.

Today, the House passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump with no Republican support.  There were a few Democrats voting with the Republicans and one voting present. Here are some of the best reactions from Republican House leaders to today's debate.

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.