How likely is it for a judicial nominee to get confirmed? Forum

[LAWSKOOL!]

Trying to figure out how much of a gamble it would be to apply to work for a magistrate who has been nominated for dist crt clerkship. Want to apply early, but dont really want to get myself into a position where i have to clerk for a magistrate if he isnt confirmed

[VirginiaFan]

Don't apply if you're not willing to clerk for a magistrate if shit hits the fan.

That said, unless your judge has some weird history that makes them especially vulnerable, the odds are 90%+ that a generic district court nominee gets confirmed, considering that the Senate and the President are the same party.

[Anonymous User]

Don't apply if you're not willing to clerk for a magistrate if shit hits the fan.

That said, unless your judge has some weird history that makes them especially vulnerable, the odds are 90%+ that a generic district court nominee gets confirmed, considering that the Senate and the President are the same party.

District court nominees are also subject to blue slips so I would also consider whether your state's senators are aligned with this nominee. And with Feinstein's death, the election next year, and general craziness in the world, I think odds of a district judge getting through in the next year are significantly lower than 90%.

[Anonymous User]

Depends a lot on who the mag judge is and where they are in the process. Nominated but not had a hearing yet? A good, generic chance of being confirmed, but the future is still hazy. (This is where blue slips come into play. No blue slip = no hearing for district court judges.)

Had the hearing--how did it go? If they sailed through (or were mostly ignored), you can expect them to come out of Committee without too much heartburn. Were they the subject of a ton of partisan rancor at the hearing? Expect a party line vote in Committee, which means they're waiting until Feinstein's seat on Judiciary is filled at the very least (though that should happen in the next week or two). Already on the Senate floor--what was their vote getting out of Committee? If party line, it could be a long while before they get voted on (may have to wait for the VP to be in town, and there are others further up the queue). If they went through pretty uncontroversially, then it could be anywhere between a couple weeks to a couple months.

The odds probably are still close to 90%, especially if the Judge is noncontroversial--Feinstein's Senate seat has already been filled (though not yet her Committee seat, as noted above) and it's just a matter of burning floor time. The risk if the nominee is controversial is that their nomination lags on the floor and then something else happens. Ironically, a government shutdown would be good for getting noms through, as all the Senators would be in town but would have little else to vote on, so Schumer could burn through cloture on noms quite quickly.