WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s appellate court picks at a record pace, but federal trial courts in Texas are still struggling with a high number of vacancies, causing a backlog of cases and overworked judges.

Trump is on track to reshape the federal courts. More than 100 benches were vacant when he took office, including 11 district judgeships in Texas.

The president has focused on appellate courts, a strategy conservative legal activists have lauded as the most effective way to reshape the judiciary. But much of the work of federal courts is at the trial level, and the relative neglect of Texas’ district court vacancies has left chronic backlogs, with judges working extra hours to ensure that Texans don’t wait months to have their cases heard.

The state will have three more vacancies starting Dec. 31, when Western District Judge Sam Sparks takes senior status — a form of working retirement available to federal judges.

“They’re pretty desperate to get people,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who tracks judicial nominations. “They really need help down there.”

Jeff Mateer, first assistant to attorney general, withdrew after being nominated for a district court in Texas when revelations that he described transgender children as part of "Satan's plan." (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

Trump has nominated five people for U.S. district court vacancies in Texas. One pulled out in December under pressure: Jeff Mateer, a top attorney for the state who had worked for a law firm that promotes religious conservative causes, drew fierce opposition after revelations that he described transgender children as part of "Satan's plan."

Two other nominees were initially picked by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, but were stonewalled by GOP senators. Trump renominated Walter David Counts III for the San Antonio-based Western District, and Karen Gren Scholer for the Dallas-based Northern District. Both won committee approval two months ago and are expected to breeze through the Senate, though the timing is unclear.

"I don't know why they haven't moved except that it takes 30 hours of debate," Tobias said of the Senate procedure known as cloture, which limits debate on a bill or nominee to 30 hours.

Democrats used the procedural move to delay circuit court nominees. Appeals from Texas go through the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also handles cases from Louisiana and Mississippi.

Judicial emergencies in Texas

Texas has 42 active trial judges, 20 senior judges and 11 vacancies in its four districts. However, seven of those vacancies are for seats filled by judges with senior status who may choose to work part-time.

All of the state's vacancies are considered "judicial emergencies," which can be determined by each judge's caseload or how long the seat has been vacant.

The Eastern District of Texas, one of the busiest in the country, has three vacancies — the oldest from March 2015. Mateer was the only pending nominee before he pulled out.

Eastern District Chief Judge Ron Clark said the district, which extends from Denton and Collin counties to Beaumont, has been swamped for at least a decade with constant judicial vacancies.

“If I want to call one of my district judges on a weekend, I call them in chambers because that’s where they are,” Clark said. “The cases don’t go away, and the citizens want their cases heard in a timely manner. The judges are trying very hard to do that.”

In December, Trump broke the record for the most circuit court confirmations in a president's first year. That followed the confirmations of Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett and former state Solicitor General James Ho to the 5th Circuit.

Clark expects three nominees soon. Typically, the White House takes recommendations from Texas’ senators.

“I understand that there are three individuals, at least I’ve been told, whose background checks had been done and they’re expected to be nominated at some point here fairly soon,” Clark said.

Controversial picks

While Trump’s success with appeals courts is unmatched, he’s had a tougher time with district court picks.

Two nominations died in December: Mateer and Alabama’s Brett Talley, who had never argued a case in court. The American Bar Association rated him “unqualified.” A week later, Matthew Petersen withdrew from consideration for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — considered the most influential bench besides the Supreme Court — after video of him failing to answer basic legal questions at his confirmation hearing went viral.

MUST WATCH: Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrump’s US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one. Hoo-boy. pic.twitter.com/fphQx2o1rc — Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 15, 2017

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz supported Mateer, first assistant to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, even after his comments on transgender and gay people came to light. Mateer made the controversial statements in a pair of 2015 speeches as general counsel for Plano-based First Liberty, a conservative law firm focused on bringing forward religious freedom cases.

"Few nominees in the past 15 years have had as many civil jury trials and appeals and supervised as many cases as Jeff Mateer,” Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty, said in an email. “He had the support of the Diocese of Austin and has represented everyone from Native American religious practitioners to synagogues and inner city ministries. Who will these liberal groups attack next — anyone who follows the teachings of Pope Francis?”

Northern District woes

A similar fight is brewing in the Northern District of Texas with Trump's nomination of Matthew Kacsmaryk, another controversial pick from First Liberty.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held his confirmation hearing in December, but lawmakers excluded him from the list that allows pending nominees to roll over into 2018 automatically. Trump must nominate Kacsmaryk again if he wants to restart the process.

A coalition of 200 human- and civil-rights groups opposed Kacsmaryk, asserting in a letter to the Judiciary committee that he "fundamentally disapproves of LGBT people." They referred to a 2015 op-ed that Kacsmaryk wrote titled "The Abolition of Man ... and Woman," in which he said those legislating and litigating same-sex marriage are attempting to remove a "pillar of marriage law."

Kacsmaryk wrote that Facebook's menu of gender identity options — 51 at the time — make "it seem as though the human person is more like a pluripotent cell whose sex and sexuality are subject to autonomous self-definition."

Northern District Chief Judge Barbara Lynn, who was nominated by Democrat Bill Clinton, said she hopes Kacsmaryk and Scholer — the Obama holdover — will be approved soon to bring some relief for judges.

The Northern District holds the record within the 5th Circuit for the highest number of civil cases more than 3 years old — nearly 7,000. That number, which includes cases on appeal to other courts, is nearly triple that of the runner-up, a district in Louisiana, according to Federal Court Management Statistics. And it's the second highest for district courts around the country, behind the Southern District of West Virginia's nearly 23,000 cases.

Judges must make long drives across the region to cover cases because the district has four vacancies, including one from 2013, Lynn said. The Northern District extends from Dallas to the Panhandle.

“We’re 25 percent short, and our district is the largest district in land area of any district in the United States that is not an entire state,” she said. “We’re just plugging those gaps as best we can, but we sure could use the help.”

Lynn had hoped for quick action, given that Republicans control both the White House and the Senate.

But even after a year under Trump, Lynn said, “we’ve still got four vacancies like we did at the beginning of the year.”