The White House submitted six new district court nominations this week. But in the meantime, 71 other people who were named to federal judgeships in the previous Congress are awaiting renomination. | AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Legal 'When are we going to start up again?' Conservatives want Trump to act on judicial nominees

GOP activists are growing concerned that the government shutdown might be distracting President Donald Trump from what they consider his most important mission: packing federal courts with conservative judges.

Anxiety over the pace of judicial nominations reached new heights this week after the White House resubmitted for the Senate’s consideration a list of more than 100 people who were nominated but not confirmed for various offices in the previous Congress. The list did not include a single nominee for an appellate or district court judgeship; nearly everyone on it was initially selected for administration leadership posts.


The lack of quick action has sown frustration in some conservative legal circles, where Trump’s allies had hoped he would immediately make judicial nominations a top priority and put the GOP’s newly expanded Senate majority to use. Instead, the president has become increasingly entangled in the ongoing government shutdown over his demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall and congressional Democrats’ refusal to grant it.

“People are starting to scratch their heads and wonder, ‘When are we going to start up again?’” a person close to the White House told POLITICO of Trump’s judicial nominees.

The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, did submit six new district court nominations this week. The Judicial Crisis Network plans to launch a $1.5 million television ad campaign Thursday night urging Democrats to “swiftly confirm” Trump’s judicial nominees, according to a person familiar with the national buy.

The 30-second spot accuses Trump’s political opponents of “unprecedented obstruction … bullying and smear campaigns,” Carrie Severino, the group's chief counsel and policy director, told POLITICO. Religious conservatives criticized Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) for asking U.S. District Court nominee Brian Buescher during his confirmation hearing if belonging to a Roman Catholic service organization could interfere with his ability to hear certain cases “fairly and impartially.”

But in the meantime, 71 other people who were named to federal judgeships in the previous Congress are awaiting re-nomination.

Trump has prided himself on his pace of judicial appointments during his first two years, and his evangelical supporters consistently cite the courts among their top reasons for sticking by him. The topic became a fixture of Trump’s midterm stump speech, as he promised to continue installing conservatives on state, local and federal benches if Republicans kept the Senate under their control.

But in the two weeks since the 116th Congress was sworn in, the White House counsel’s office, which is responsible for presidential nominations, has been pulled in different directions, including determining the legality of declaring a national emergency to secure border wall funds — a proposal that appears to have been at least temporarily abandoned — and preparing for the coming investigative onslaught by House Democrats.

“The [White House] counsel’s office is extraordinarily tied up with lots of things, but from our standpoint, this has been among the president’s highest priorities and the most successful thing the administration has done, so they need to find the time and devote the resources to get it going,” one conservative leader said.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remains ready to go whenever the White House resubmits its list of names.

The top Senate Republican began reaching out to incoming GOP senators and senior administration officials shortly after the new year to say judicial nominations remained a top priority for him, according to two people familiar with those conversations.

The 71 judicial nominees from the previous Congress were in different stages of confirmation at the end of last year. Several nominees whose confirmation hearings were held in 2017 or 2018 were never approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. More than a dozen of them were blocked by then-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who declined to vote Trump’s nominees out of committee until Republicans took up his bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, which they never did.

Other nominees might not be resubmitted to the Senate this year because of objections from their home-state senators or vetting issues.

At the same time, Trump’s conservative allies are growing worried about the number of judicial vacancies at the federal level. There are now more open district and circuit court seats — 162 in total — than there were when Trump began his presidency.

Some conservative legal activists had hoped Trump could get some of his nominees through the Judiciary panel by the end of January, even if parts of the federal government remained shut down. But people like Neomi Rao, whom Trump tapped to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Court of Appeals, would likely have to be renominated by early next week to appear before the Senate in that time frame.

“We’re all kind of waiting for the trigger,” the person close to the White House said.

