Law Commons^™

Filling Lower Court Vacancies In Congress' Lame Duck Session, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In this midterm election year of 2022, the nation’s divided political parties are in a battle royale to win the exceedingly close Senate majority. One important explanation for the fight is that the party which assumes the next Senate majority will necessarily have considerable power to affect the confirmation of federal judges. For example, during Donald Trump’s presidency, Republicans controlled the Senate; therefore, the chief executive and the upper chamber proposed and confirmed fifty-four accomplished,
extremely conservative, young appeals court, and 174 district court, jurists. The Republican White House and Senate majority confirmed judges by rejecting or deemphasizing the rules …

Keep The Federal Courts Great, Carl Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Ever since Donald Trump began running for President, he has incessantly vowed to “make the federal judiciary great again” by deliberately seating conservative, young, and capable judicial nominees, a project which Republican senators and their leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have decidedly embraced and now vigorously implement. The chief executive and McConnell now constantly remind the American people of their monumental success in nominating and confirming aspirants to the federal courts. The Senate has expeditiously and aggressively confirmed two very conservative, young, and competent Supreme Court Justices and fifty-three analogous circuit jurists, all of whom Trump nominated and vigorously supported throughout …

Enclave Districting, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Congressional districting has historically fostered single-member, geographically compact districts consisting of contiguous territory and has resulted in common representation for those who live near each other. Underlying compact districting is the assumption that people living relatively close together share political interests that can be adequately served by common representation. When the United States was a sparsely populated agrarian nation and only the propertied were the enfranchised, providing common representation based on residential proximity was sensible. Over time, however, the connection between residence and political interests has diminished. In the wake of the Supreme Court's suggestion that representation should focus on …

A Grand Notion For Power-Center Lawyers, Porcher L. Taylor Iii

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Like leaders of so many administrations before them, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, both lawyers, surrounded themselves with an inner circle composed mainly of lawyers-turned-political advisers and policy bureaucrats.

Some would argue that lawyers and politics are a bad brew. But lawyers trust lawyers so much that some will steadfastly defend their political bosses, even if that means being key players in the potential cover-up of a crime. In their skewed minds, accusations of crimes by leaders of the opposing political party are merely biased power politics.