The election of Donald Trump has introduced fresh uncertainty into the effort to fill two judicial vacancies in Minnesota, leaving the possibility that the state's federal bench will be beset for months by what some observers have called a partial shutdown of the nation's court system.
Judges Donovan Frank and Ann Montgomery decided earlier this year to assume senior status, a form of retirement that allows judges to maintain part-time or full case loads, immediately creating two of the country's now 38 "judicial emergencies."
Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken moved quickly to create a bipartisan judicial selection committee days before Frank's senior status became official in October, and the committee is now reviewing applications.
But judicial scholars say the task of appointing a Supreme Court justice likely will take precedence in the White House and the U.S. Senate once Trump assumes office, and 59 other judicial nominations already are pending — some as long as 11 years.
"This whole business of filling vacancies at one point was a ministerial task: The senators filled vacancies because that's just what you did," said Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution who spent nearly 30 years with the Federal Judicial Center, the national policymaking body for federal courts.
"Having the time from nomination to confirmation now being in the hundreds of days is just one more indication of how polarization prevents the government from doing most anything."
Under the U.S. Constitution, the president nominates candidates for federal judgeships, which require Senate confirmation. But the process is otherwise heavier on custom than Constitutional code. A state's home senators generally take the lead on recommending candidates. But if those senators are not of the president's party, they can wield less influence.
Rep. Erik Paulsen, Minnesota's senior Republican member of Congress, is among those who suddenly could have greater influence on whom Trump nominates.
