Judicial nominations, 2009–2016

Appointments and nomination submissions

President Barack Obama's judicial nomination record included confirmed appointments, nominations renewed after Senate returns and nominations that ended without confirmation. The selected entries in Wikipedia's nomination table include Louis B. Butler's submission in 2009 and Merrick Garland's in 2016, as recorded in its account of Obama judicial nominations. Reading the record requires attention to the court, the submission being considered and the final action on that proposal. A person could be nominated again after an earlier submission ended, so nomination activity and completed appointments measured different things.

Wikipedia lists 329 confirmed Article III judgeship nominees under Obama, including 55 court of appeals judges and 268 district court judges, in its list of federal judges appointed by Obama. That overall total also included Supreme Court justices and judges of the Court of International Trade. The list separated those courts from appointments to courts established under other constitutional articles. Its confirmed appointments cannot be treated as a list of all unsuccessful submissions or of every step that preceded an appointment. The selected table below instead follows named nominations through their recorded final actions.

The first-term analysis

The Congressional Research Service examined lower-court nominations during Obama's first term and compared that record with earlier presidencies. CRS counted 42 persons nominated to circuit judgeships, of whom 30 were confirmed during the first term, in its analysis of first-term circuit and district nominations. Its categories also distinguished nominees whose submissions were withdrawn or returned without resubmission from those returned and then renominated. This distinction matters when a Senate session ended before a nominee's overall consideration was finished. A returned submission could be followed by a new submission of the same person's name.

For district judgeships, CRS counted 173 persons nominated and 143 confirmed during the first term in the same first-term analysis. These figures concerned persons nominated during the period studied, rather than the full presidency's completed appointment total. They also separated the circuit and district records. Combining those categories without specifying the period would conceal which court group was being measured and whether a later renomination or confirmation fell outside the report's first-term boundary.

Timing was another part of the CRS comparison. It reported median intervals between nomination and confirmation of 225.5 days for Obama's confirmed first-term circuit nominees and 215 days for his confirmed district nominees, in its discussion of nomination-to-confirmation waiting times. Those statistics described the confirmed nominees included in the analysis. They did not supply an eventual confirmation date for an unconfirmed nominee or explain every individual delay. The report treated the pace of Senate consideration, appointment opportunities and judicial vacancies as related subjects requiring separate measures, rather than substituting a waiting-time statistic for the outcome of a particular nomination.

Withdrawals, returns and appellate vacancies

The selected table includes the Ninth Circuit nomination of Goodwin Liu and the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Circuit. Wikipedia records both as presidential withdrawals in its table of unsuccessful nominations. Their profiles follow the Senate proceedings more closely. The table's final-action entries establish how the recorded submissions concluded; they do not imply that the Senate cast a direct vote rejecting either nominee's confirmation. The distinction leaves room to describe unsuccessful cloture votes, committee activity and a president's later withdrawal as different events.

The district nominees Arvo Mikkanen, William L. Thomas and Mary Barzee Flores were listed as returned to the president, while Elissa F. Cadish was listed as withdrawn, in the same Wikipedia nomination table. Those entries identify their proposed courts and the recorded dates without requiring a common account of why the nominations ended. The court labels also distinguish district nominations from appellate proposals. Final action could occur after the calendar period in which a nomination was submitted, so the table preserves that later date when the source records it.

The cloture change and Supreme Court outcomes

On November 21, 2013, the Democratic Senate majority used a procedural ruling to establish simple-majority cloture for nominations other than Supreme Court nominations, according to Wikipedia's account of the change in Senate precedent. The change concerned the threshold for ending debate. It did not itself confirm a judge, remove committee consideration or include Supreme Court nominations in that precedent. Distinguishing cloture from confirmation therefore remained necessary when describing nominations considered under the changed practice.

The confirmed Supreme Court appointments included Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, identified in Wikipedia's appointment list. By contrast, Obama submitted Merrick Garland on March 16, 2016, and the nomination was returned on January 3, 2017, according to Wikipedia's nomination record. Wikipedia's account of that vacancy records that the Senate did not consider the Supreme Court nomination made after Justice Antonin Scalia's death. The profiles and selected records thus distinguish completed Supreme Court appointments from a nomination that ended without Senate consideration.

Selected nominations that ended without confirmation, as Wikipedia records them.

Nominee	Court	Nominated	Outcome
Merrick Garland.	SCOTUS	Nominated March 16, 2016, as Wikipedia records.	Returned to the president on January 3, 2017, according to Wikipedia.
Goodwin Liu.	9th Cir.	Nominated February 24, 2010, as Wikipedia records.	Withdrawn by President Obama on July 29, 2011, according to Wikipedia.
Caitlin Halligan.	D.C. Cir.	Nominated September 29, 2010, as Wikipedia records.	Withdrawn by President Obama on March 22, 2013, according to Wikipedia.
Louis B. Butler.	W.D. Wis.	Nominated September 30, 2009, as Wikipedia records.	Returned to the president on January 3, 2012, according to Wikipedia.
Arvo Mikkanen.	N.D. Okla.	Nominated February 2, 2011, as Wikipedia records.	Returned to the president on January 3, 2012, according to Wikipedia.
Elissa F. Cadish.	D. Nev.	Nominated February 16, 2012, as Wikipedia records.	Withdrawn by President Obama on January 4, 2013, according to Wikipedia.
William L. Thomas.	S.D. Fla.	Nominated November 14, 2012, as Wikipedia records.	Returned to the president on January 4, 2013, according to Wikipedia.
Mary Barzee Flores.	S.D. Fla.	Nominated February 26, 2015, as Wikipedia records.	Returned to the president on January 3, 2017, according to Wikipedia.