COURTS/NOMINATIONS/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump is nearing a milestone in his push to overhaul the federal judiciary with conservative judges. If the Senate confirms a batch of nominees now working their way through the approval process, a quarter of the nation’s 179 appeals court judges — those sitting just below the Supreme Court — will be appointees of Mr. Trump. That number is far higher than the number of appointees to the appeals court that either George W. Bush or Barack Obama had made at this point in their presidencies. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday [10-31-19] on advancing a group of nominees, including several to the appeals court. But in a break from most other nominees over the past two and a half years, two of them do not have uniform support among Republicans. Votes on Steven J. Menashi, a White House lawyer being considered for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals based in New York, and Halil Suleyman Ozerden, a federal judge in Mississippi nominated for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals based in New Orleans, had been delayed.”
–Rebecca R. Ruiz, “Two Disputed Judicial Nominees Could Help Trump Reach Milestone,” The New York Times online, October 30, 2019