GOP Races to Confirm Trump's Judges Before Democrats Take Senate

Senate Republicans are racing against the clock to confirm as many of President Donald Trump's remaining judicial nominees as possible before Democrats take control of the chamber in January. With about two dozen nominees still pending and barely seven weeks left in the lame-duck session, the scramble has already produced open infighting inside the Republican Party.

The US Capitol in Washington, DC. Senate Republicans have about seven weeks left in the lame-duck session to confirm President Donald Trump's remaining judicial nominees before Democrats take control in January.

The stakes are high because federal judges serve lifetime appointments. Every seat Republicans fill now will outlast the incoming Democratic majority, shaping American law for decades. Democrats swept both chambers in the November 3 midterm elections, and the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027 — turning a routine end-of-year schedule into a sprint, with Majority Leader John Thune and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley making the nominees their top priority.

The Committee's Fast Track

The push began on Tuesday, November 10, when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance four of Trump's district court nominees in a single day. Kyle Reardon, nominated to a district court in Alaska, advanced by a 16-6 vote, with four Democrats joining Republicans. Three others — Daniel Ballou of the Eastern District of Kentucky, Richard Bennett of the Southern District of Texas and Courtney Coker of the Northern District of Texas — cleared the panel on party-line 12-10 votes. The committee then held a hearing the same day for four more nominees, including Todd Butler, nominated to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Grassley has scheduled two hearings within an eight-day span this month, a pace he defended in a Wall Street Journal opinion article published November 10, warning that Democrats "clearly intend to use their newfound power next Congress to wage an obstruction campaign."

About 23 judicial nominees remain pending — four for the federal appeals courts and 19 for the district courts — and only three are on the Senate floor and ready for a vote. They would add to the 56 lifetime appointments Trump has made in his second term, on top of the 234 he confirmed in his first. Grassley predicted that by year's end, Trump will have confirmed more than 300 lifetime judges across his two terms. "We're going to make every second count, and that means all these judicial appointments," Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the Republican whip, said on Tuesday. "We're going to do everything we can to get every single one of them confirmed."

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is driving the lame-duck push to confirm as many of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees as possible. (Official Senate portrait, 2017)

GOP Infighting Over Trump's Choices

But the compressed timeline has also heightened clashes between the White House and Republican senators over the president's choices.

In Oklahoma, a committee vote on two nominees was derailed by opposition to one of them, Zachary West, from the state's junior senator, Republican Alan Armstrong, according to a source familiar with the nominations process. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, is backing Armstrong, meaning West would struggle to get out of the committee.

The White House also had to reverse course on Tuesday night on a nomination for an Arkansas seat on the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals, after the home-state senators balked at the choice. The canned nominee, US District Judge Lee Rudofsky, was widely celebrated by the conservative legal movement and had already had his hearing. The seat mattered because filling it would mean Trump had appointed a majority of the judges on that court. Republicans will now schedule a new hearing for the freshly announced nominee, Arkansas Supreme Court Justice J. Cody Hiland.

The conservative legal world was already grumbling about the nominee for a Mississippi seat on the 5th Circuit, Todd Butler, who has the support of the state's senior Republican senator, Roger Wicker, but is not seen as a reliable vote for the right's most cherished causes. Joshua Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, said the movement would have preferred Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, who argued successfully at the Supreme Court for overturning nationwide abortion protections. "Trump has set precedents where he will roll over for the state senators," Blackman said. "And we have the picks who probably are not the best picks as a result."

Texas has produced its own tangle. The scramble included a November 4 call from Republican Senator Ted Cruz to a top Justice Department lawyer to gauge his interest in filling a seat in Texas, after the state elected Democrat James Talarico, who will have veto power over district court nominees once he takes office. Trump formally announced the nomination of T. Elliot Gaiser, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, less than a week later. Texas Senator John Cornyn, a retiring Republican who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, told the Associated Press he had concerns about how the White House has tried to "air-drop" somebody into the vacancy. Gaiser did not go through the usual process Texas senators use to vet nominees, and Democrats have zeroed in on his limited ties to Texas — a clerkship in Houston, with the rest of his career in Ohio or Washington, DC.

Democrats Push Back on the Process

Democrats argue that Grassley is violating procedures in how he is orchestrating the final push. They have pointed to norms around holding judicial hearings at least two weeks apart — a plan for a November 18 hearing comes after a confirmation hearing on November 10 — and giving the committee at least 28 days to review the paper applications, known as Senate Judiciary Questionnaires, submitted with nominations. "Don't be surprised if some of these violations have now become routine enough to be followed in the future," warned Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee's top Democrat, who is retiring after this year.

Grassley countered with examples of Democrats also violating those rules when they held the gavel. "They're planning to stonewall a president's ability to appoint judges — now that is what is unprecedented," he said. "I'm going to work hard to get judges confirmed quickly during the lame duck session."

Once Republicans get the nominees out of committee and onto the Senate floor, Democrats still have leverage to slow the process down. Unless Republicans can reach a deal with Democrats, the Senate must devote 30 hours of floor time for appeals court nominees, and two hours for district court nominees — a burden while the Senate also tries to pass a major permitting reform bill. Thune laid the groundwork on Wednesday for the Senate to stick around through Friday — an uncommon work day for a chamber that usually wraps up by Thursday early afternoon — for opening votes that would start the floor clock on a tranche of nominees. Democrats have the ability to make the floor process "excruciating" for Republicans, said John P. Collins, a George Washington Law School professor who focuses on judicial nominations.

President Donald Trump. He has confirmed 56 judges in his second term, on top of 234 in his first, and his allies say the lame-duck confirmations would cement his legacy on the federal bench. (Official White House portrait)

What This Means

The lame-duck fight is about more than two dozen resumes. It is about how long Trump's imprint on the judiciary will last — and how much power Democrats will actually hold when they take over in January. Trump's remaking of the judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down in his first term, could arguably be the longest-lasting legacy of his presidency. Right-leaning judges could continue to serve as a check on Democrats by striking down their policies if they expand their power in Washington in 2028 and beyond.

For Democrats, the irony is sharp. In the 2024 lame-duck session, Democrats then controlling the Senate sought to push through judicial confirmation votes before Republicans took over, and Thune, then the incoming Republican leader, said Schumer had wrongly assumed Republicans would "roll over." Now the roles are reversed.

What Happens Next

The immediate test comes next week. Nominees will need a confirmation hearing by next week if Republicans want them on the Senate floor by mid-December, before lawmakers leave for the holidays. Grassley has a hearing planned for November 18, and the first tranche of nominees should begin moving on the floor after this week's opening votes start the debate clock. Watch whether Democrats force the full 30 hours of debate on appeals court picks — a move that would eat up days of floor time — or cut a deal to confirm some nominees quickly and leave others behind. The Arkansas seat will need a fresh hearing for Hiland, and the Oklahoma nominations remain in doubt as long as Armstrong and Tillis hold their opposition.