With the confirmation of Kenneth Kiyul Lee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, President Trump is on track to flip the notoriously liberal court to Republican by 2020.
According to National Review’s Ed Whelan, Lee will be filling a seat that was held for decades by “arch-activist Stephen Reinhardt.”
And there’s nothing but good news for Republicans on the horizon, Whelan says:
Up soon for a floor vote—next week, I hope—should be Ninth Circuit nominee Daniel P. Collins. [Update (3 p.m.): Cloture has been filed on the Collins nomination, so it should be voted on next week.] Collins would fill the seat long held by Harry Pregerson, the Ninth Circuit judge with the strongest claim to rival Reinhardt in lawless willfulness.
The appointments of Lee and Collins would give the Ninth Circuit 11 Republican appointees versus 16 Democratic appointees, with two remaining vacancies. At the start of the Trump administration, the Ninth Circuit had 19 Democratic appointees, only 6 Republican appointees, and four vacancies.
According to Whelan, “eight of the 16 Democratic appointees are eligible to take senior status, and a ninth soon will be, but there is no particular reason to expect any of them to elect that option.”
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