President Trump is making the federal judiciary more right-wing and less qualified. Trump may not be getting much legislation passed; however, he is adversely affecting the course of American history with his appointment of federal judges.
In addition to flagrantly blocking President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, the Republicans in the Senate blocked all of Obama’s nominees for federal judgeships in 2016. This meant that in addition to the Supreme Court Justice, Trump could appoint 100 federal judges.
First, as expected, he appointed an extreme conservative, Neil Gorsuch, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, he has been full-speed ahead nominating federal judges. And again, as expected, his nominees for judgeships are mostly white men and very conservative.
Some are plainly not qualified. Brett J. Talley, President Trump’s nominee to be a federal judge in Alabama, is just three years out of law school and has never tried a case. He was unanimously rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s judicial rating committee, and he is openly partisan and extremely so, denouncing “Hillary Rotten Clinton” and pledging support for the National Rifle Association. Nevertheless, last week the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved Talley for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. They did so despite the fact that Talley’s wife works in the White House, a potential conflict of interest he did not disclose in his confirmation process.
Talley, 36, is part of what Trump has called the “untold story” of his success in filling the courts with lifetime appointments of young conservatives. He is doing that, and he is affecting in a very negative way the future of the federal judiciary.