Talk:List of federal judges appointed by Barack Obama

Good value
As it stands now, this article is hilarious. Obama has made no judicial appointments, and that's what the article says. Perhaps a wee quick off the mark in creating this; I suppose we could have waited for one appointment to be made, but nothing like being pre-prepared. I wonder why we don't yet have William Henry Harrison judicial appointments, which could similarly say, "He made none." Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:11, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, it says that in William Henry Harrison - and for presidents with small numbers of appointments (Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, etc.), there is no separate entry, just a section in the article on that president. But Obama has about sixty to make right off the bat (another District Court judge just resigned on Monday), so I expect a steady flow of nominations beginning within the next week or so. bd2412  T 16:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * However, come to think of it, for those presidents who made small numbers of appointments, President Foo judicial appointments now redirects to the appropriate section of the article on the president or the president's administration. I would have no objection to changing this to a redirect to an appropriate section in the Obama administration article, until he has had a half dozen or so judges confirmed. Cheers! bd2412  T 19:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not think that we need to wait for a half dozen appointments - just one is fine for me, since he will likely make more. What is nice about the article is that it does have the current number of vacancies - but I guess this is also on one of the federal judiciary page. --Enos733 (talk) 06:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I agree that the page is fine, I just thought it's state was quite funny at first. If for whatever reason the Obama Administration ended before he made very many appointments, then it of course could be merged with another article as the format for WHHarrison and other presidents with few appointments, but as long as we're anticipating at least a 4-year term with many appointments, it's fine to stay as a separate article. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"Results" column.
This article in general is modeled after List of judicial appointments made by George W. Bush, List of judicial appointments made by Bill Clinton, and about three dozen other articles in the series. I'd rather not deviate from the established model. If any nominees fail, we can remove them from this page and establish an article on Barack Obama judicial appointment controversies modeled on George W. Bush judicial appointment controversies and Bill Clinton judicial appointment controversies. bd2412 T 04:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The Obama article is also the only one to include a "Nomination date" column. That's valuable info and I wouldn't advocate removing that column just so that this article conform with the rest of the series.  In any case, given that there are only Obama nominees as this stage and no actual appointments, I think the tables should indicate the result of the nomination or be updated to only include nominees who have been seated.  I strongly prefer the former rather than waiting months/years to determine the result of a nomination.  Given the article's title, the table in its current format is misleading.  The "Results" column is a step towards adding some clarity, in my opinion. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd actually like to add a "Nomination date" column to the rest of the articles - but a "Results" column would be superfluous if we're going to eliminate all listings for appointees who are not approved, and therefore never seated as judges (which we should, since there is a better place for those). All of the results will be identical, nomination successful. The fact that a nomination is no longer "pending" will be apparent from the "Began active service" cell actually having something in it. bd2412  T 06:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with updating other articles in the series to include nomination dates. As for this article, it is currently being treated as a nominations article rather than an appointments article.  So either the article (and perhaps even the series of articles) should be renamed, or we should remove all of the names from the tables until they are seated.  I would prefer having a nominations articles similar to List of nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States.  The appointment controversies articles do not capture nomination dates or result dates (e.g. voted down or withdrew from consideration). Billyboy01 (talk) 14:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be more thorough to have a separate section on failed/withdrawn nominees on these pages and change the page from Barack Obama judicial appointments to Barack Obama judicial nominations? TheUnknown285 (talk) 18:44, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As I've noted above, this article is the latest installment in a series, and a parallel series exists to address failed nominations. bd2412  T 19:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with TheUnknown285 that it's cleaner to have all nomination info, regardless of outcome, in one place. It wouldn't be the first time that improving a series of articles required that they be renamed and/or merged.  But given the current structure and names of the parallel articles, there's no reasonable place to list pending nominees; we jumped the gun in adding them to the tables here. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My two cents are to a) keep all of the pending nominees on one page b) include nomination dates - and add nomination dates to the rest of the series. The problem with this series is there is a difference between nomination (made by the President) and confirmation (approved by the Senate). There really is not an "appointment" - but nomination and confirmation. We ought to clarify what term we use for the series. I would prefer "List of Judicial nominations made by President X" with all of the information about successful and failed nominees in one place.--Enos733 (talk) 00:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The last few presidents have had upwards of 300 nominees confirmed, and only a handful unconfirmed. I am confident that we are best served by a full listing of successful appointments only (which, viewed from another perspective, is a list of federal judges, under the heading of the President that appointed them), and have a separate and more in depth examination of those nominees that failed. bd2412  T 00:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Let me rephrase that this way: the article could just as easily be named List of United States federal judges appointed by Barack Obama. bd2412  T 00:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If true, then a "Nomination date" column is wholly out of place and should be removed. That kind of information, while valuable, is misplaced in a table intended to catalog federal judges and their time on the bench. In those kinds of lists (e.g. List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States), the focus is the judge and the date of their nomination (or multiple nominations, in the case of someone like William Pryor) is of little relevance. Rather, "Nomination date" (and "Result", for that matter) belongs in a list where the focus is the nomination itself (e.g. List of nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States). The current title is vague and I would support renaming this article to clarify its intended focus. Billyboy01 (talk) 02:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, look, this is really uncharted waters we are in. The entire series of articles got started after Bush had finished his judge-nominating days, and before Obama even took office, so there's no precedent for how to handle this for a sitting president, and I'm inclined to say that this whole discussion should be going on at WikiProject United States courts and judges, so we can apply the outcome to the entire series. If we look at this as a list of judges, I still so no reason to eschew listing their nomination dates, as that is a feature of the judge's biography (historically, many district court judges have been nominated and confirmed on the same day, while others have lingered for months in the interim - which must reflect at least a little bit on the perception of the nominee). But the way I see it, the ambiguity of the article title is fine because it serves both purposes. It is a "list of people nominated by Barack Obama, who were later confirmed" and at the same time it is a "list of federal judges whose nomination was at the hands of Barack Obama". I see no reason to sharpen the focus one way or the other since, again, any nominations that fail will be discussed elsewhere. However, it would be little trouble to re-title the articles, if another title is more appropriate (I've actually been thinking about renaming them for a while to specify that these are federal judges, as many presidents have previously been governors, and appointed scads of state court judges). bd2412  T 03:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem with the article's current ambiguous title is that the two interpretations you describe above are not the only ones being applied. "List of people nominated by Barack Obama, period" is another possible interpretation, and that alone warrants a name change. I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States courts and judges. Billyboy01 (talk) 15:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Include pending nominations?
It would be a pity to hide the pending nominations (as it is done now). This is an important and valuable information with encyclopaedic content. Wiki can afford to keep it up to date in due time and an article on List of judicial appointments made by Barack Obama is an appropriate place to put it. The other articles in this series were indeed only written when there were no pending nominations anyway. I would agree to remove this information once the nomination has failed (either because the Senate returns it or the President withdraws it) and to move it to a new article on "Obama judicial nominations controversies". It seems evident to me that a nomination is pending as long as there is no date for "Began active service", one may add a comment "Nomination pending" in this field to specify this fact. BjoernZ (talk) 07:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Historically, very few federal judicial nominees have ever actually been rejected, and with the President's party having a substantial majority in the Senate, it is likely that most of these nominees will be confirmed without any particular drama. Of course, there may be substantial delays in their confirmations, if the minority party wants to be obstinate (but given the voting numbers at issue, even that is questionable at this point). Either way, however, it is only a matter of time until at least some of Obama's nominees are confirmed. bd2412  T 07:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This is precisely my point: I would prefer not to wait for several months before information on a nomination becomes accessible. Anyway, it will most probably result into an appointment and there is no harm if one has to remove a nominee occasionally. At the moment there is some partial information on nominations in the top section, it seems more logical to me to have this (also) in the tables. BjoernZ (talk) 09:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

With regards to pending nominations: -- fdewaele, 8 April 2011, 13:25 (CET)
 * wouldn't it be proper to split confirmed nominees from nominated nominees in separate tabels?
 * And wouldn't it be handy if in the tabel of nominees a column with the status of each nomination is added (for instance: no action taken yet, in committee, reported to Senate, vote sheduled for X,...)

Proper place for nomination info?
Based on the revision history of this article, it seems that "judicial appointments" in the title was intended to be synonymous with "judge". However, the term is vague enough that is has often been interpreted to mean "judicial nomination". Given the article's current title, it could be argued that pending/withdrawn/rejected and otherwise unsuccessful nominations should be included, either as part of the main tables or as separate (and much smaller) tables of unsuccessful nominations. Alternatively, this information could be captured in a separate article. Note that I do not consider the "judicial appointment controversies" series of articles to be the proper place for this information, given that not all unsuccessful nominations are controversial (e.g. John Roberts' nomination for associate justice being withdrawn so he could be nominated for chief justice), and that those articles would not capture information for successful nominations. Billyboy01 (talk) 03:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Proper place for nomination info (as long as pending): YES (see my comments above). Proper place for withdrawn/returned nominations: NO. John Roberts is really a specific situation, he would just have moved his position in an article, a short note can explain this. Billyboy01, would you agree with this? I suppose the others do anyway. BjoernZ (talk) 06:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I would say that any place that includes pending nominations would also include unsuccessful nominations. Perhaps a "list of nominations" page/section or "list of unsuccessful nominations". Billyboy01 (talk) 15:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Billyboy01. I think this page should be about all of President Obama's nominations to the federal judiciary. If an unsuccessful nomination is worthy of its own page, that is fine, but there does not need to be a separate page for just a list or chart of unsuccessful nominations.--Enos733 (talk) 18:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As I sad, it is just pity to hide pending nominations and I still would believe that this article is the good place to pot them. (To be clear: I fully agree that unsuccessful nominations should disappear to another article). I suppose that the article originally intended to include information on pending nominations. If not, it is a bit premature as a whole anyway. Therefore, I have created a new section and moved the information on pending nominations from the top section. I hope everybody can live with this.BjoernZ (talk) 07:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It turns out that the series of articles that this article belongs to was originally intended to list judges, not nominees. I proposed renaming this article to avoid this confusion in the future. Billyboy01 (talk) 22:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree with this smart way of cutting of the discussion. Since no consensus seems to be possible whether pending nominations should be included, I would propose (as a smart way out) to create a new article Judicial nominations by Barack Obama where pending nominations, completed appointments and (future) nomination controversies can be included and/or referred to.BjoernZ (talk) 13:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I still have no problem with including pending nominations (and making them visible) on this page, on the theory that the vast majority of them will go through. bd2412  T 17:34, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with the name change, sorry for being a bit ambiguous. The only point I wanted to make is that pending nominations should be included somewhere and not hidden.BjoernZ (talk) 19:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't think the article as is does not provide information in a thorough and easily digestable format regarding pending nominations. The article only lists six pending nominations. However, there are currenly twelve nominations, to my knowledge. Ten here listed here (http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings/ratings111.pdf) plus two more that haven't been listed yet by the ABA but have been listed in the Senate Daily Digest. None of these District Court nominees are mentioned in the article. Listing them using the current format (sentence format) would become very unwieldy, especially considering the rate of nominations is far exceeding the rate of confirmations. I propose adding tables for pending nominations, which would include name, court to which nominated, nomination date, and notes (such as notes about hearing dates or date cleared committee).TheUnknown285 (talk) 06:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree, as failed nominations (particularly nominations that are simply never acted on) are simply not as noteworthy as successful appointments to the federal judiciary. bd2412  T 16:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * They're not failed; they're pending. That's my point.  Pending nominations are already listed, just not an exhaustive list.  Making the list exhaustive using the current paragraph format would be very unwieldy.  Therefore, I think tables should be added for pending nominations to save space and allow for skimming.  Plus, considering most pending nominations this session are likely to be approved at some point, putting them in table format makes it easier to transfer them to the current judges tables once they're confirmed. TheUnknown285 (talk) 17:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact, they are already in the source text of the tables (at the moment commented out). As we discussed earlier, I would personally also prefer to make them visible (and remove the extra paragraph). As TheUnknown285 pointed out, all relevant information is then digestible more easily. Anyway, considering the filibuster-proof Democratic majority, nearly all of them will be confirmed at some moment. BjoernZ (talk) 20:22, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * They are not failed noms, but they will either fail or succeed; if they succeed they are notable for being federal judges and will be made visible. If they fail, they won't belong here, as we don't list failed appointments on any of these lists. There would at that point be a basis for a separate article on Obama appointment controversies. bd2412  T 01:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're missing my point. The article ALREADY (don't mean to scream, just adding emphasis) mentions pending nominations.  However, this section on pending nominations is already out of date, missing several, more recent nominations.  Adding these additional nominations in the current format for pending nominations would further lengthen the article and would be more tedious to read.  Adding an additional table (or tables) would present this information in a more digestable format. If any of these nominations succeed, then they can be brought up to the original tables.  If they fail, they can be removed (or moved to a controversies page). TheUnknown285 (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The point of the section discussing pending nominations is not to report all pending nominations, but to satisfy the historical curiosity as to who were Obama's first nominees. bd2412  T 14:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * For the sake of factual correctness I would say that pending nominations should be complete, preferentially in a table. In fact the section pending nominations was made (and amended) when they had to disappear from the tables but is no more up to date (though it should be). I do understand the problem that nominees are not yet judges, so formally one might argue that they do not belong here at all; we already had this discussion above. BjoernZ (talk) 17:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not at all an accurate description of the point of the pending nominations section (the Nomination Date column is a cleaner, and sortable, way to help satisfy any "historical curiosity" about Obama's first nominees). The section was added as a way to capture some useful info that had previously been listed in the intro but was no longer appropriate in the intro when the article's focus shifted from nominations ("appointments") to judges. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sotomayor will be confirmed this week. When her table entry goes live, I support updating the table to capture the final confirmation vote, and perhaps even the confirmation date (the "Began active service" date is NOT necessarily the same as the confirmation date; Roberts and Alito were seated on the same day that they were confirmed, but that was not the case for Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer, Ginsburg). If we were to add a column(s) for this purpose, the obvious solution would be to list pending nominees in the main tables and list the confirmation info as "pending". My initial venture at adding a "Result" column was met with a deletion, but with the recognition that we were in "uncharted waters" and that there was "no precedent" for dealing with ongoing nominations. What's the consensus with adding a column(s) to capture the confirmation info? Perhaps we should wait for Sotomayor to be confirmed and seated before arriving at a final tally, but I'm a strong supporter. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * On the issue of the intention of a "pending nominations" section I just expressed my personal motivation, not really a point we should continue discussing. More importantly, I perfectly agree with Billyboy01's proposition to add a confirmation date to the table and to include all nominees.BjoernZ (talk) 07:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this sentence really necessary (or appropriate)?
"Some Democrats have criticized the pace of Obama's judicial appointments as too slow."

It seems out of place in this article, which is basically a running tally of Obama's nominations and their statuses. There is no mention of criticism from the right about the perceived liberalism of some of the nominees (e.g. David Hamilton) or about Obama's reported emphasis on appointing a woman and Hispanic to the Supreme Court. Nor, does it mention other criticism from the left. So, it seems like this commentary on controversy is both out of place and not exhaustive. I suggest removing it. TheUnknown285 (talk) 22:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It might properly go in Presidency of Barack Obama, then. However, we are tallying the numbers here, and this relates directly to the numbers. bd2412  T 23:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've copied the information over there. I won't object if it is removed here. Cheers! bd2412  T 16:58, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is there now a number column?
Just wondering, why is there a "#" column now in the tables? If the goal is to indicate the order in which appointees were confirmed, the sortable table will already let reader sort the entries by confirmation date, and absent that purpose I find it confusing. bd2412 T 23:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * My intent was to simplify bookkeeping, especially when dealing with presidents who have appointed hundreds of judges. In reviewing previous administrations, I noticed it wasn't always entirely straightforward to determine how many judges a particular president had appointed, or when they had appointed them. Recess appointments can be confusing, especially if they end up not being confirmed (e.g. Charles W. Pickering) or appointed by multiple presidents to the same seat (e.g. Roger Gregory). Additionally, I found it useful for verifying that there are no missing entries and for highlighting that the list represents a complete and finite set of people. Unindexed lists tend to convey a sense of incompleteness (e.g. List of brain tumor patients), at least to my mind. Billyboy01 (talk) 04:06, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to me that the bookkeeping needs to be visible on the page then. We're keeping a tally up top, after all. bd2412  T 04:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a hand tally rather a value mentioned in an external reference, so the # col makes it apparent to a reader how we arrived at the value. Granted, it's trivial for a reader to verify that the tally is correct when there are only 5 judges who have been confirmed without controversy. But when data sets are large (does the Reagan district court judges table really have 290 entries?) or potentially open to debate (did W have 61 court of appeals appointments, or 62?), I think the col clarifies matters.  And in general, I think numbered lists have greater readability.  However, given that the col also elicits the opposite sentiment, I'm happy to treat this as a stylistic preference; once a consensus preference emerges we can proceed accordingly. Billyboy01 (talk) 05:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I see. Still, we only need to verify the count once. The discrepancy above is the result of the FJC (whose numbers we use) not counting Roger Gregory for Bush. bd2412  T 13:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

List of United States Presidents by judicial appointments
As new appointees are confirmed, please remember to also update the total number at List of United States Presidents by judicial appointments. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Nomination date clarification
Some of Obama's nominees will soon have multiple nomination dates. I started a discussion here to determine how we should handle this. Billyboy01 (talk) 06:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Foote, Goldsmith, Tucker, and Treadwell District Court Nominations
News sources indicate they were nominated today (February 4, 2010). None have been mentioned on the White House website, so I included news sources for each. This happened before with the Black and Navarro nominations. In this case, we removed the sources once official confirmation was given. I would assume we should do the same in these two cases. I put the nominees in order alphabetically by state. However, that order may change. Keep an eye out. TheUnknown285 (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good way to handle it. bd2412  T 01:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * They've appeared on the Senate website (for some reason, no WH press release - not the first time that's happened). I've therefore removed the refs and will double-check the order. --Lincolnite (talk) 10:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Issue with sorting
I've noticed the sorting options will sort confirmed judges and those awaiting confirmation separately. For example, instead of placing all Second Circuit nominees together, it sorts by confirmation status, listing the confirmed judges by Circuit and then the unconfirmed judges by Circuit. Same thing for nomination date. I think it's better to group them all together instead of by confirmation status. Confirmation status will be readily apparent by the background color. I, however, don't know how to change the sorting. TheUnknown285 (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * To get everything to sort as one group, remove the class="sortbottom" attribute from the table rows. I thought it made some sense to sort them separately when added that, but I don't have a strong preference. Billyboy01 (talk) 04:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, I changed it. Thanks for the help. TheUnknown285 (talk) 23:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Should there be a section about firsts/notable appointments?
Obama has made some notable nominations/appointments. Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice (and first woman from a racial minority on the court). Irene Berger was the first female African-American federal judge from West Virginia. Barbara Keenan is the first woman on the 4th Circuit. And so on. So, should these facts be noted here? TheUnknown285 (talk) 07:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Barbara Keenan is not the first woman on the Fourth Circuit. There have been several before her. As to your question, I think those types of notations should be left to to the biographies of the judges themselves. Most of them are going to be obscure or narrow "firsts." Also, the lists of federal judges appointed by previous presidents do not contain such a section. Ncjon (talk) 11:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with Ncjon, this information is best left to individual biographies or articles on the courts themselves. bd2412  T 12:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. Keenan was the first woman from Virginia on the 4th Circuit, not the first woman period.  For the matter at hand, I guess the comments settle it.  We'll save this information for some other page.  TheUnknown285 (talk) 22:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Rejected appointments
I see that the nominations of Goodwin Liu, Chatigny, Butler, Chen, and McConnell Jr. have been deleted from the main list of appointments also the Chen and Butler footnotes. I think it is a mistake to completely delete them. They were appointed by Obama (although not yet confirmed due to the senate sending the nominations back to the White House) and they should be noted on the main page. Btw, word is that President Obama is planning on renominating them when the Senate returns from recess in September. So, the information regarding their first, second, and for some their third nomination should be kept track of. LeahBethM (talk) 03:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There were various discussions about this last year. I kind of liked the idea of having a page that tracked any and all nominations, but the consensus at the time was that this page (and other similarly named pages in the series) was intended to track appointed judges.  Including pending nominations at all was something of a compromise.  Failed nominees would presumably be addressed at Barack Obama judicial appointment controversies. Billyboy01 (talk) 04:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Supreme Court start dates
We typically use the FJC-reported commission dates as the "Began active service" date for the lower courts, largely because there's no other comprehensive source for this type of information. However, for Kagan and Sotomayor, the Supreme Court's website specifies start dates later than their commission dates, with the comment that "The date a Member of the Court took his/her Judicial oath...is here used as the date of the beginning of his/her service...". Billyboy01 (talk) 03:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Photo of Obama and Kagan?
I think a photo should be added to the right side of this article featuring President Obama and Elena Kagan, such as the one with Obama and Sonia Sotomayor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mgigs12 (talk • contribs) 03:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Article III courts?
Earlier today, someone added two nominations to territorial courts to the list. This afternoon this was reverted on the point that non lifetime judges (article I courts) are not included in the list, which is limited to article III courts. However the article has as title "list of federal judges appointed by Barack Obama". Both Article I and article III courts are federal judges, so the article's title could be seen as a bit misleading when only including the most visible of those, namely the life time judges at the Supreme, Appeals and district level.

On the other hand, the article does mention that Obama also designated sitting judge Emily C. Hewitt of the United States Court of Federal Claims, an Article I court, to be Chief Judge of that court. This isn't a life time position either... on the theory that only life time judges should be mentioned, this doesn't deserve a mentioning either.

Now, there are currently three categories (SCOTUS, Appeals and district level judges). Shouldn't there be created a fourth category regarding nominations to article I judgeships? It would give a more complete view and be more in line with the article's title. If this is not adopted, then the article should make it more clearer in its opening that it handles article III judgeships and not article I judges only plus the mentioning of the designation of Hewitt should be scrapped. Comments? -- fdewaele, 13 July 2011, 16:20 CET.

The Senate Judicial confirmations page for the 112th Congress has 73 District Judges confirmed, as of today, whereas our article has 71. I noticed are on the Senate site, but not in our list: 28. Ramona V. Manglona, D Nor. Mariana Islands   July 26, 2011 (voice vote) 25. Wilma A. Lewis, D Virgin Islands June 30, 2011 (voice vote) http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/112thCongress.cfm (Sorry if this has already been covered. Is there a reason we didn't include them?  Irish Wolfhound (talk) 22:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The List of federal judges appointed by George W. Bush, and several predecessor articles, list Article I judges under Specialty courts, at the end of the page. This article should follow suit. bd2412  T 15:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, it's the proper and logical answer. But which wikipedian feels called to add it to the article? My wikistrenghts aren't that big that I can make tables and the like, so someone else will need to "volunteer" for it and take this "burder" upon him/her...-- fdewaele, 13 July 2011, 18:40 CET.

United States Court of Military Commission Review
Where does the United States Court of Military Commission Review fall in judicial hierarchy? Therequiembellishere (talk) 12:03, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that it would be an Article I court, with no appeal possible. I have noted that no Article I courts or nominations have yet been added to this article, although they are present, to a greater or lesser degree, in the Judicial appointment articles of other Presidents. Safiel (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I would support adding Article I appointments here. bd2412  T 18:55, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds doable. There are a limited number of Article I judicial positions subject to Presidential appointment, so it should not significantly lengthen the article. I will thumb through the appointments on THOMAS. Safiel (talk) 20:10, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like we would be adding U.S.C.o.A. for Veterans Claims, U.S.C.o.A. for the Armed Forces, U.S.C. of Federal Claims, U.S. Tax Court and U.S.C. of Military Commission Review. In addition, there are the three Article IV territorial courts to consider. I would omit the D.C. Court of Appeals and D.C. Superior Court as not being federal in nature. Safiel (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with that. There's also the Court of International Trade, I think, but I don't think Obama has appointed anyone to it. bd2412  T 20:55, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I added the Court of International Trade a few days ago, as Obama made his first nomination to it. It is sitting down near the bottom of the article. Safiel (talk) 21:12, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops! So you did. It won't go anywhere at this point, though. bd2412  T 21:56, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What about these other bodies mentioned in the box here: the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals and the United States Merit Systems Protection Board? And out of the territorial courts, Obama's only had the chance to nominate (successfully) one person each to the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands and the District Court of the Virgin Islands. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:29, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Territorial Courts can go in as Article IV courts. The other courts mentioned are not Presidentially appointed. Safiel (talk) 00:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The Caitlin Halligan nomination has been sent back to the White House
Senate GOP Ends D.C. Circuit Nominee's Bid a Second Time [http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/08/senate-gop-ends-dc-circuit-nominees-bid-a-second-time.html%20 Source article here. ] - Even though The Senate is in recess The House did something tricky in order to send this nomination back to the White House. LeahBethM (talk) 21:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Senate Republicans used a Senate rule to force the nomination to be returned. Under Senate rules, when the Senate adjourns or recesses more than thirty days, all outstanding nominations are returned.  Typically, however, the Senate, by unanimous consent, waives this rule and the nominations are kept in the status quo. The Republicans refused to give consent on this nomination, forcing it to be returned to the White House. It is unlikely that Obama will renominate her, unless he wins a second term and wants to try to force this issue on this in the 113th Congress. Safiel (talk) 17:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The House did not send Halligan back to the White House on August 3rd, it would have been August 8th. The House did not pass the adjournment resolution on August 2nd when they voted the first time the resolution failed.  Then five days later after The Senate went home and was in pro-forma sessions, The House passed the adjournment resolution on August 7th during a 5 minute session.  Thought I would mention that because in the main article edit history it says 'sent back August 3rd' and that is incorrect, should be August 8th. LeahBethM (talk) 02:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's completely irrelevant, it's no longer in the article so any information on when she nomination was rejected belongs on the judicial controversies page. Therequiembellishere (talk) 03:12, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Why does the Halligan nomination not include a footnote to reference her previous nominations to the same seat? I understand that the lapse between the return of her nomination in December 2011 and her renomination in June 2012 represents a problem since it was non-continuous. But why not at least reference her June 2012 nomination? Js489991 (talk) 15:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Judicial Emergencies
Would there be a way to note which pending nominations are for judgeships that have been declared Judicial Emergencies? Would that be considered to be of value? Irish Wolfhound (talk) 04:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

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RfC: Nomination dates for federal judges
Interested editors may want to comment at Talk:List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump/Archive 2, which impacts this article. — JFG talk 23:20, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

ABA ratings
There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:List of federal judges appointed by Joe Biden, regarding the potential for the inclusion of this information in that article which will be precedential for inclusion in this article. Please discuss and make comments there. Any comments made here will be transferred to the centralised discussion to reduce discussion dispersal. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)