Trump Adds 2 More Conservative Judges To 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals

This brings Trump's grand total of judges appointed so far since he took office to 187!

OANN has more details on the judges Trump appointed to the 9th Circuit this month:

President Trump has added conservative influence to the federal appeals court best known for its Democrat judges. The Senate officially confirmed the president’s decision to add two conservative judges to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees cases in the western part of the U.S.

This month, Judges Lawrence VanDyke and Patrick Bumatay were appointed by President Trump. The court, which was once dominated by liberals, now has more than a third of the president’s appointees.

It has long been lambasted as the most partisan of all 13 appeals courts due to its lack of party diversity. However, that reputation could change after the president’s latest move to rebuild the once liberal court.

Moving forward, district cases coming out of blue states, such as California, could potentially receive pushback from the Ninth Circuit on issues such as green cards, healthcare and abortion.

Politico also stated:

A bastion of liberalism in the federal judiciary is slowly turning rightward, threatening Democratic court challenges on everything from abortion to who gets a green card.

 

The Senate confirmation of Lawrence VanDyke and Patrick Bumatay to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month brought to nine the number of appointments President Donald Trump has made to the 29-member bench that serves as the last stop for nearly all legal complaints lodged in nine Western states. Democratic-appointed judges now hold a three-seat majority, compared with 11 at the start of Trump's presidency.

                                                                                        

If the trend continues, it represents a major shift in the liberal wing of the judiciary, meaning lawsuits for progressive causes won’t find a friendly ear as easily as they have. The circuit has been the go-to venue for activist state attorneys eager to freeze Trump policies on health care, immigration and other social issues. It ruled against Trump's weakening of Obamacare's contraceptive mandate, as well as multiple versions of his travel ban.

                

It's now weighing the administration's overhaul of the federal family planning program, the "public charge" rule that denies green cards for individuals who participate in programs like Medicaid — and it could take up the "conscience rule" allowing health providers to opt out of providing care on religious or moral grounds. With Congress largely gridlocked, the rules often are the only way to change policies, even if they're often challenged in court. And transforming the judiciary to make it more sympathetic to such an agenda could be one of the enduring victories of Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that will far outlast their time in office.

 

Trump has called the 9th Circuit “a complete and total disaster" and a "big thorn in our side," and some congressional Republicans still threaten to break up its jurisdiction. But its changing ideological makeup could wind up giving states like California less legal elbow room to challenge Trump policies and go their own way in areas like reproductive rights and LGBTQ issues.

“The 9th Circuit is a very important circuit, and the presence of more conservative judges puts in peril all of American health care reform," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), himself a former state attorney general.

With California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's penchant for challenging Trump's agenda, the 9th Circuit's caseload of liberal causes isn't likely to shrink, said Chris Kang of the liberal group Demand Justice, who oversaw the selection and vetting of judicial nominees in the Obama White House. But the calculus could change.

"Republicans politicize the judiciary so they can accomplish policy goals that they wouldn't be able to do through the democratically elected branches of government," he said.

The 9th Circuit isn't the only court whose makeup has changed through Trump’s conservative nominees and McConnell’s singular focus on confirming judges. The 1st Circuit in Boston and 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia now have Republican-appointed majorities. But the 9th has outside importance as the biggest circuit in the country and a jurisdiction with more than 60 million people.