Talk:List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump/Archive 2

Retired Supreme Court Justices
To the IP who has raised this issue, retired U.S. Supreme Court justices definitely may, and frequently do, serve by designation on lower courts after they retire from the Supreme Court. See Supreme Court of the United States. The governing statute is 28 U.S.C. § 294(a). I can cite dozens of examples if need be, including the fact that Justice David Souter, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2009, will be sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and hearing cases next week (see here). Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Supreme Court
Supreme Court Justices Don't Get Senior Status. Once a justice dies, retires or resigns from the Supreme Court, They're All Done.

Thank You! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:401:C400:357:25F9:1235:3C49:DC69 (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Please see the section just above. You are right that a retired Justice no longer serves on the Supreme Court itself, and you are also right that the term "senior status" is not usually used for Justices. However, retired Justices are statutorily eligible to serve by designation on lower federal courts and they frequently do so. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, O'Connor did this, too, I think. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, retired Supreme Court Justices can serve by designation on any lower Article III Federal Court. Souter still actively serves, Stevens still hires a clerk but does not actively hear cases at this point and O'Connor has gone entirely inactive and no longer hires a clerk. Safiel (talk) 02:43, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Supreme Court Justices and "Senior Status"
Okay, before I lose my mind and get into an editing war with other editors, there needs to be a consensus

I realize that once a Justice assumes senior status/retires (I'm using the terms interchangeably) that they no longer serve as an active member of the Supreme Court, however, they can sit by designation on any lower court, typically an appeals court. In the subsequent "Federal judges appointed by (insert president)" lists, do we list said "senior" Justices "end of senior status" dates if and when that happens or do we just stop at when their active service on SCOTUS ends? Currently FJC lists O'Connor, Souter and Stevens in senior status. The Supreme Court currently lists them as retired. I'm sure there have been others in the same term of service but in recent memory, I don't know.

Personally, I'm of the persuasion their term in senior status/retirment should be listed, if others disagree, that's fine, but they still are an active judge even if not part of SCOTUS, right?

Relevant text: ''(a) Any justice or judge of the United States appointed to hold office during good behavior may retire from the office after attaining the age and meeting the service requirements, whether continuous or otherwise, of subsection (c) and shall, during the remainder of his lifetime, receive an annuity equal to the salary he was receiving at the time he retired. (b) (1) Any justice or judge of the United States appointed to hold office during good behavior may retain the office but retire from regular active service after attaining the age and meeting the service requirements, whether continuous or otherwise, of subsection (c) of this section and shall, during the remainder of his or her lifetime, continue to receive the salary of the office if he or she meets the requirements of subsection (e).''

Opinions? Snickers2686 (talk) 22:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Paging    -- Feel free to add others to the discussion if you feel their insight would benefit the reaching of a consensus. Snickers2686 (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Just saying your ping didn't work. For further clarity, I'm going to cite, which you already did above, but just to link people to the actual statute. It does say "justices" may retire on senior status and another justice may be appointed to replace them if that happens, which means that they are bona fide on senior status. I think that some of the confusion has occurred because the "retired" (still on senior status, just using the non-legal definition of the word) justices can no longer rule on pending supreme court cases even if there is a vacancy or recusal, and they can only serve on Article III district courts or courts of appeals. They're still on senior status, however, and for that reason I will Support keeping the additional column. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 22:49, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I can't ever figure out the damn pings lol but thanks for your input Snickers2686 (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * For the record, let me point out that literally the only place that the word "senior" appears in the text of it is part of the phrase "senior judges"; no reference to "senior justices" or even "senior status" for justices. How you've determined that the text of that section says "'justices' may retire on senior status" or that "they are bona fide on senior status" if another justice is appointed to replace them I don't know, but that just isn't what the text of the statute actually says. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It says any "judge or justice". – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 10:42, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * So you concede the point that the text of neither uses the term "senior justice" nor applies the term "senior status" to retired SCOTUS justices? Now to address what you said directly: what it says is "justice or judge" (not "judge or justice"), and the basic idea here is that "Any justice or judge . . . may retire" (on salary). That's the basic point here. Nowhere does the text of the law say "Any justice or judge . . . may take senior status". And more to the point, the phrase "justice or judge" appears TWENTY-ONE TIMES in this one little section of the code, but the one time the word "senior" is used is one of the few places where retired justices are not mentioned at all. That seems significant. No such thing as "senior justices". LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:43, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I concede both points, but note that the word "senior" appears twice on the page: once in the section title and the other time is talking about the Judicial Conference, which I assume doesn't mention justices since there can only be so few justices who are on senior status compared to the hundreds of district and appellate court judges serving on senior status. The fact that subsection e) constantly alternates between "justice" and "judge" indicates to me that justices can take senior status (and actually do work) or retire as mentioned in previous subsections. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 18:39, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It is neither your place nor mine (WP:OR) to speculate about why the law was written the way it was. The fact of the matter is that in the one place where "senior judges" are mentioned, there is no parallel mention of "senior justices" or even justices of any kind. The fact is that the word "justice" appears 25 times in this section, 21 of them followed by the words "or judge". The other four times are two places where a retired justice has to be certified by the Chief Justice in explicit parallel to retired judges being certified by chief judges. There are no stray references to "justices" that are not conjoined to references to "judges", and there is no "constant alternation" in subsection e) (or anywhere else) between "justice" and "judge". The term "justice" is always conjoined (by the word "or") to "judge" except in the two places mentioned previously where it is still in clear, explicit, and obvious parallel to something being said about "judges". In that context, the omission of the word "justice" from the one and only sentence that refers to "senior judges" cannot be ignored. As for the section title, it is unclear what exactly the term "senior status" is supposed to refer to within the section because the text never uses it. Obviously the references to justices in the section can be understood as falling under the "retirement on salary" part of the title. Also, you seem to think that "senior status" is somehow an alternative to "retirement": it is not. Senior status is a form of retirement. On the whole, I think your reading of the law is fairly question-begging; you're reading into the law what you want to find, rather than interpreting the law and reading it for what it says. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think we're getting anywhere by being pedantic and arguing back and forth about this. As others have stated, this column won't be needed for another 14 years assuming that a consensus is even reached to place it there. I'm going to back out of this discussion now. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 20:47, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Comment Since none of the other List of federal judges appointed by president pages see here here and here (these are the ones that have current retired justices) have a senior status box for a scotus judge and the scotus site lists them as retired there is no reason to change the status quo. Oppose. עם ישראל חי (talk) 22:54, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Just because WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (or doesn't, in this case) doesn't mean that valuable content can't be added to an article. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 23:00, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That doesn't enter the equation when all the same pages for other presidents don't have that column makes it a good reason not to change the status quo because it proves the status quo is as it is for a long period of time longer than this page even exists. עם ישראל חי (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Right now you are arguing that keeping the status quo is better than changing to the arguably "better" format. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 00:47, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. The senior status option has only existed for Supreme Court justices since 1937. Since then, many have died on the bench, while some have resigned completely so they could return to private practice. It should not be too hard to add the column to all the relevant articles. bd2412  T 03:14, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. I'll be honest I thought I was on your side, until you asked me to come and comment and I decided I needed to look into the issue carefully. The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as "senior status" for Supreme Court Justices. None of the statutory text applies that language to Justices, and the fact, admitted above, that the Court itself only refers to them as "retired" should be a clue. It is not our place to apply terminology in novel ways. The terminology has a real-world, legal, defined-by-statute usage, and that terminology does not apply here, however much it might look like the same kind of thing that lower court judges are doing when they're on "senior status". The only relevant difference for Supreme Court judges is whether they "retire" or "resign". Retired justices may sit by designation, but they are not called "senior justices". Resigned justices would not be able to sit by designation. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:08, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm going to add pieces of evidence in favor of my position. First, . Section (a) discusses service by designation of retired SCOTUS Justices on lower courts, whereas (b) first defines the term "senior judge" to apply to those judges who have retired under the relevant conditions and then describes what judicial duties they may continue to undertake by designation. Real terminological difference between the two. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:13, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Our own article on senior status says that "senior status" isn't even in the body text of the USC, admits that "senior judge" is only applied to retired lower court judges, and goes on to explain that retired SCOTUS Justices are referred to as "retired justices" rather than "senior justices" both in the law and in court orders or opinions that they participate in. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:17, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Our article on Associate Justices also makes clear that SCOTUS justices who retire are not treated the same way as "senior judges". (I admit to having just deleted the words "in senior status" from that paragraph, but they introduced confusion at the point they were used, and the rest of the paragraph makes clear that retired AJs need to be understood differently from senior judges retired from the lower courts.) LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:27, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Important points: (1) "Active" and "senior" are, by the terms of the USC, mutually exclusive: you're one or the other. (2) The relevant distinction, especially for SCOTUS Justices, is whether they "resigned" or "retired". The former involves giving up their commission (and their ability to sit even by designation), while the latter does not. (3) "Senior status" is not some kind of alternative to "retirement": it is a form of retirement. Judges who maintain a sufficient workload once they've retired get paid more; judges who don't get paid less. That's about it. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:22, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * EVIDENCE AGAINST MY POSITION: On the other hand, while I stand by everything I've said above, I will admit that the FJC applies the term "senior status" to retired SCOTUS justices as here for David Souter. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 04:48, 6 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support I have examined the statutes. I have examined the FJC Bio entries of all Justices who's termination was post 1937. Whether you want to use the term senior status or retired justice, there clearly needs to be a column for termination of service. Some Justices terminated, such as Scalia, by death in active status. Some Justices, such as Fortas, terminated by resignation. Then there are the vast majority who achieved Rule of 80 and took retired status/senior status. Of those, (excepting, of course, the ones still alive), terminated retired status/senior status by way of death. Charles Evans Whitaker, the sole exception, terminated by way of resignation. Essentially, (and the statute corroborates my point of view), the retire OUT OF THEIR SEAT, but continue to HOLD THE OFFICE. Even if, as in the case of Sandra Day O'Connor, they are no longer exercising the office, they still hold the office. There absolutely should be a column indicated a termination date from senior status/retired status. Whether that column is titled Ended Senior Status or Ended Retired Status is debatable, but which ever way it is titled, it clearly should exist. Safiel (talk) 05:14, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Perfect: you did the thing I was just about to do, which was look at the FJC bios for all post-1937 retiring justices. I accept your claim about what they say, but that only proves my point. Unlike lower court judges retired justices don't really have a way out of "senior service". FJC automatically describes every single SCOTUS retirement (as opposed to resignation, cf. Fortas) as assuming "senior service" and the only way out of this is by death (or in the one case resignation). Whereas lower court judges can actually exit senior status without resigning or dying (cf. Andre Davis for one recent example) and they can also retire directly without resigning or taking senior status (cf. Alex Kozinski for a recent example). Supreme court justices are treated differently from lower court judges, and they have different options. Neither law nor practice ever considers them to be "senior justices" so I don't think that adding a column here is meaningful or useful. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 05:26, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You say that all justices have to take senior status involuntarily per the FJC, but is that true? Could it be that no justice actually wants to retire (the legal definition of the word) because they take a pay cut and can also no longer hire a clerk? If anything, it doesn't look like a justice would formally retire unless they're joining another branch of government or are entering private practice. So maybe the fact that no justice likely wants to retire (as opposed to resigning in scandal like Fortas) explains why no one is actually listed as retiring post 1937. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 18:33, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What I said was the FJC automatically described every single SCOTUS justice who retired as having taken "senior service". That strikes me as incredibly fishy. Is it possible that no SCOTUS justice since 1937 has tried to retire simply (bypassing "senior service") or has retired fully after having done "senior service"? Sure. But given how often lower court judges do one of those two things, it seems like more than a statistical anomaly that FJC gives us no such examples, especially if you consider that retired SCOTUS justices actually are in a position that is less like their pre-retirement one that retired lower-court judges, by which I mean that retired lower court-judges can continue sitting on the bench they have retired from, but retired SCOTUS justices cannot sit on the Supreme Court under any circumstances. Retired SCOTUS justices thus necessarily suffer a loss in prestige when they retire if they continue serving in anyway, whereas retired lower-court judges really don't. You also seem to misunderstand how retirement works: read the statute carefully. Any justice or judge who retires, having met the service requirements, continues to receive an annuity equal to their salary when they retired for the rest of their lives. There is no cut in pay for retiring, whether you ever do any more work in "senior status" or not. The only "cut" to speak of comes if the salary of your colleagues is increased after you retired, in which case you're stuck at the old salary rate unless you are engaged in a certifiedly adequate amount of service. If the justices simply didn't want to retire, they wouldn't retire; nobody can force them off the bench. Also, I note that O'Connor has not hired a clerk in several years and Stevens has not performed any judicial duties since retiring, yet they're both still listed uninterruptedly by FJC as being on "senior service": how does that make sense, either with your reading of the situation, or with the text of the statute in question? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand that by virtue of no longer sitting on SCOTUS, justices who have taken senior status are in a position of lower prestige. But as Safiel pointed out, they still wield considerable authority under 28 U.S.C. and Article III. When I stated that justices "take a pay cut" by retiring, I was referring to the fact that the justices would no longer receive yearly cost of living increases in pay. For example, if O'Connor actually retired back in 2006, she would be paid $52,300 less annually than if she took senior status. As for O'Connor and Stevens not hiring clerks, they likely took inactive senior status, as judge William J. Riley of the 8th Circuit did last year to continue receiving the pay increases but effectively be retired. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 20:43, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the proposition that a Justice can't "retire" completely. Arthur Goldberg resigned the court to become UN Ambassador, and then returned to private practice (including arguing a case before the Supreme Court). He could not conceivably have sat as a judge on a case in any court while engaging in any of those activities. bd2412  T 15:39, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. Do you agree with my argument or not? – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 15:44, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should have a column listing any period of senior service during which a former justice would be eligible to sit on a lower court. I don't think that all justices who resign are automatically in that status. I think it is lost when a justice takes another position or returns to private practice in a way that makes it impossible as a practical matter to actually continue any service as a federal judge. I am reminded of the retirement of Paul Redmond Michel from the Federal Circuit; he retired from the court entirely, without taking senior status, in order to return to practice. There is nothing to prevent a Supreme Court justice from doing the same. bd2412  T 15:51, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

If you look on scotus' own site it just lists them as retired no mention of senior status. עם ישראל חי (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Despite the one reference in the cited statute as well as the reference on the FJC database (likely drawn from that statute), the fact is that in practice, the term "senior status" is never used for retired Justices in everyday parlance. This includes in the front matter of the United States Reports, in listing the judges on a Court of Appeals panel when a retired Justice is sitting, and in myriad other contexts both official and unofficial. Therefore, the term "retired Justice" should be used throughout Wikipedia, although that in the specific article on retirement of Justices the parallel to senior status and the statutory language should be mentioned.

Interestingly, 28 U.S.C. § 294(a) provides that a retired Justice may be designated to perform the duties of a Circuit Justice. This would be a form of service as a member of the Supreme Court (as opposed to acting as a lower-court judge). However, to my knowledge this has never actually happened.

Justices "retire" as long as they have met the age-and-service requirements for doing so. Since the current statutory scheme was created, Justice Byrnes, Justice Goldberg, and Justice Fortas are the only ones I can think of who "resigned." Justice Whittaker had not met the length-of-service requirements, but retired on disability, the only Justice who has done that. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:26, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * So do you support or oppose the inclusion of a column in the SCOTUS section of this article (and presumably related ones) to indicate the "senior service" of SCOTUS justices after retirement? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * In principle, I favor inclusion of such a column in "Justices appointed by" articles, but headed "service as a retired Justice" rather than "senior service." However, frankly, I find it odd that we are having this heated a debate on this topic on this particular article, given that no Justice appointed by President Trump is going to be eligible for retirement for probably a couple of decades. It might make the most sense, for all the levels of judgeships, to omit the retired/senior status columns until at least one justice or judge retires and takes senior status, and add them them. At the moment it makes little different whether each of the charts has an extra column consisting entirely of a pile of dashes. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Comment there's a big difference between other federal courts and the scotus a scotus justice who retired may sit on a lower court for example a circuit court as we see here but not on the scotus itself while a federal judge taking senior status can sit on that same court as before he assumed senior status as we see in this case .עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:47, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Comment Referring to NewYorkBrad's comment. Justice Gorsuch would not be eligible for senior status until August 29, 2032, when he will turn 65 years of age, have about 26 years of combined Article III service and satisfy the Rule of 80. And, most likely, barring any exceptional circumstances, he will serve at least 10 to 15 years beyond that date in active status. Some of the people who will be arguing this issue at that point aren't even born yet. We can safely omit the column as it relates to the Trump list, without conceding the underlying issue. Safiel (talk) 02:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Comment Referring back to LacrimosaDiesIlla reply to me. Whether or not retired Supreme Court Justices can exit "retired Justice" status and truly TERMINATE their service is not really consequential. The fact is that while in retired Justice status, even if they are not actually exercising it, they still retain Article III Judicial power and that is a significant power and a significant status that should be acknowledged on the tables. While they know longer can take part in the business of the Supreme Court, they still can sit on any lower Article III Court and that is a very significant status with significant power. Safiel (talk) 02:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Term start date
I think that the "began service" date of every judge here should reflect the date of taking the oath of office (as long as oath date is known),the reason is that all senior officials are nominated by the president and should have the Senate's advice and consent, after which the president formally appoint them to the specific position, with a commission, which is an appointment ceertificate. That's the practice with Secretaries, senior advisors, agencies' directors and so on. in all of these nominations there is unequivocal agreement that the date written as "Assumed office" is the oath date. it shouldn't be different here. (I do agree that when the oath date is unknown, the date labled as "began service" should be commission date).

What do you think about my suggestion? נריה לוי (talk)


 * We've started a new discussion of this issue lower down in the talk page: your contribution would be greatly appreciated.


 * Sdrqaz (talk) 01:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Pictures of judges and nominees
I've noticed that the majority of the judges on this list don't have pictures on their pages. Can only wikipedia editors place them in? Also, are there strict criteria on where those pictures come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newcomer164 (talk • contribs) 02:18, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


 * There are very strict copyright requirements for file uploads. I'll ping to provide you more info (I'm not that knowledgeable when it comes to this process). – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 15:35, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, it is typically VERY difficult to obtain pictures of federal judges that comply with Wikipedia's very strict requirements for images. I have uploaded several images to commons recently, but in every case, those were chambers pictures that are eligible under the federal government public domain exception. If you can't find a chambers picture, then it gets very problematic. I have updated thousands of federal judge articles during the last couple of years and probably have found two dozen qualifying photos in that time. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's requirements make it extremely difficult to find qualifying photos. Safiel (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Has anyone in the project ever directly contacted court clerks and asked for public domain pictures to upload? This wouldn't just apply to Trump appointees and could work for any sitting judge. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 15:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That would be a good idea, particularly if you have high quality image scanning equipment. I have a relatively low quality scanner, but for somebody with a good scanner and the willingness to do the necessary legwork, it would be quite worthwhile. For anybody that decides to do that, don't skimp on the image details and size and be sure to upload it to commons, not the English Wikipedia. Safiel (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I got this photo, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_W._Kehoe.jpg, via the State of Florida, which has waived copyright off similar to the federal government. Unfortunately, most states have not done so. Safiel (talk) 16:11, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Changing title pages
There are some nominees where I wanted to change the title pages, but could not log in. There are five nominees who are listed by their full names, but have never used their middle names professionally. They are Jeffrey Beaverstock, Holly Teeter, Marilyn Horan, Thomas Farr, and Charles Goodwin. What is the method for changing the titles of these bios to reflect this? Also, if I can't remember my password, do I need a new user name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:fcc8:ad0b:b100:6428:8d39:105b:1d4c (talk) 03:46, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Greetings and welcome back. Another editor may address the renaming requests. I would recommend following the process outlined at WP:Requested moves. You can do that on the relevant talk pages, even as an IP editor. — JFG talk 10:20, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * To recover your account, if you did set up an email address, you may be able to reset your password via an email confirmation. See Help:Reset password. — JFG talk 10:20, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

DC Superior Court
The President also appoints members of the DC Superior Court. So wouldn't it make sense to list his nominees for that court on this site? If not, where on Wikipedia are his nominees listed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD0B:B100:650B:22A7:5588:A317 (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Carmen Guerricagoitia McLean was the only one I knew about, but looking here, there are more. I'm not sure they are listed anywhere on Wikipedia. It looks like the other names are Deborah Israel, Rainey Ransom Brandt, and Shana Frost Matini. Marquardtika (talk) 02:32, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Judges nominated multiple times by Trump
Regarding A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., I think we should have some note, somewhere, that when he ended his service as a district court judge, it was because he was elevated. I also think we should do this with other appointees if/when a similar situation arises in the future. Including such notes for these appointees is provides helpful context as to why their tenure ended and shows that while their tenure on a lower court ended, their federal judicial service did not. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 02:00, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think an end note ought to be sufficient. It's not something likely to happen very often, but it would be nice to give the reader an explanation. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:59, 30 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Good idea. I support this. Marquardtika (talk) 02:34, 3 October 2018 (UTC)


 * on other presidential judicial pages elevated goes into the ended senior status column it's not that uncommon for a future president to elevate a judge עם ישראל חי (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Murkowski vote on Kavanaugh
I don't understand your reasoning. To my knowledge not many judicial nominations receive votes of "Present", so there's not much precedent to go off of, but I think it should be included, since there were 99 recorded votes on the nomination, not 98 as the current table implies. It should at the very least be noted in some way.  Nevermore27  (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * if you watch and listen to the roll call she withdraw her vote so it wasn't recorded as a vote עם ישראל חי (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's still in the official roll call.  Nevermore27  (talk) 00:54, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * According to Pair (parliamentary convention): "Live pairs are agreements which members make to nullify the effect of absences on the outcome of recorded votes. If a member expects to be absent for a vote, he or she may "pair off" with another member who will be present and who would vote on the other side of the question, but who agrees not to vote. The member in attendance states that he or she has a live pair, announces how each of the paired members would have voted, and then votes "present." In this way, the other member can be absent without affecting the outcome of the vote. Because pairs are informal and unofficial arrangements, they are not counted in vote totals; however paired members' positions do appear in the Congressional Record."

So they appear in Congressional Record totals, but they are not officially counted. So to me that says the vote is STILL 50–48, as is noted in the |official tally. Snickers2686 (talk) 19:22, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * IDK dude, the senate.gov page shows a recorded vote of "present", I think it should be noted.  Nevermore27  (talk) 01:47, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've only seen the vote represented in news stories as 50-48. See, e.g.,, , or . In discussing older S.Ct. nominations, I've never seen articles on here note the abstentions, pairings, or other non-votes. In the chart, we should keep it simple and follow these precedents. In the article about his nomination, there is more room for nuance and extended discussion. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're just reading the headlines, sure.


 * 1) "With one senator voting present[...]"
 * 2) "Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was a “no,” but voted “present”"
 * 3) "Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican to oppose the nominee, voted ‘‘present,’’"
 * Those are direct quotes from the three links you posted. We don't note when a Senator didn't vote, as we shouldn't. But judicial nominations rarely receive "Present" votes. But my bottom line argument is that there were 99 recorded votes, according to the Senate roll call (regardless of what Snickers says about pairing), on the Kavanaugh nomination, and the table as it is currently composed heavily implies that there were only 98. It should either say 50-48-1 or have a footnote attached to it explaining the vote of "present".  Nevermore27  (talk) 03:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree a simple note can be added to mention Murkowski's vote and the reasoning behind it, but the numbers should be kept at 50-48.Terrorist96 (talk) 13:06, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * at the actual voting she withdraw her vote laymen call it voting present but that's not actually true its not counted as a vote עם ישראל חי (talk) 14:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The official senate roll call, which is linked to in the article, very clearly includes a vote of "present" by Sen. Murkowski. It's a recorded vote. I don't know what people are trying to prove by saying she withdrew her vote, it's recorded!  Nevermore27  (talk) 03:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

see page 7 pairing or so called voting present is not considered an actual vote voting is either aye or nay עם ישראל חי (talk) 18:32, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * It recently came to my attention that added a footnote regarding Sen. Murkowski's vote on the Kavanaugh nomination after little to no consensus was obtained in this discussion. It's my understanding that if no consensus is reached in a discussion, then the change should not be made to the page. Should the footnote still remain in the article, despite other users not agreeing with the edit? – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 03:42, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There was objection to making the vote read 50-48-1, but never any objection to adding a footnote, and indeed one editor expressed support for a footnote as a compromise. Regardless of what anyone says about Paired votes "not being counted", if you look at the official senate.gov roll call vote, you will see a recorded vote of "present" and I feel that should be noted somehow.  Nevermore27  (talk) 05:05, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't mind the footnote too much myself—although I wouldn't have done it: as mentioned above there is plenty of room in the separate article about the Kavanaugh nomination to explain such things (people actually interested in the details of the Kavanaugh nomination are not going to be looking at this page as their main source of information)—but I think raises a fair point about how this information came to be added. It looks to me like there were four people discussing this with Nevermore27 originally back in October, only one of whom supported adding the footnote. That hardly counts as achieving consensus, and waiting two months to do it (it looks like the footnote was placed on January 6) doesn't somehow make it okay either. Therefore, on procedural grounds, I would support removing the footnote unless/until consensus is reached about including it. And on the question of whether or not to include it, please count me opposed; it can be (and is being) dealt with at Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The delay between the discussion and my adding the footnote wasn't an attempt to do an end-run around consensus as you imply, just forgetfulness. There was no objection to adding a footnote, and under the discretionary arbitration on this page, consensus isn't required for initial edits. Bottom line, keeping the counter at 50-48 with no footnote implies that there were 98 recorded votes on the nomination when there were 99.  Nevermore27  (talk) 23:15, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I am more than happy to accept that you acted in good faith. On the substantive question, however, I think your speculation about what "50–48 with no footnote" implies begs the question. There is disagreement among the editors here over precisely the question of whether or not Murkowski's "present" counts as a "recorded vote," so some of us would apparently be perfectly happy with the "implication" that there were only 98 recorded votes. But also, is this really a thing? Does anyone come here looking at these tables wondering how many recorded votes there were? If they do, aren't they always interested every time the numbers don't add up to 100? Do we need to explain which Senators were absent from various votes? I mean, it would be interesting to know the difference between someone who got confirmed 51–45 on a Party line vote with 4 Democrats absent versus someone who got confirmed 51–45 with two members of each Party absent and 2 Democrats voting to confirm, but we don't have to provide all these details, right? That's why we link to the actual roll call votes? Why isn't the fact that we're already linking to the roll call vote and also have a separate article about the Kavanaugh confirmation adequate? Why do we have to try to shove more information into the table? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:07, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Anyone who wants to argue the vote "wasn't recorded" or "isn't a real vote" is welcome to try and explain away the Senate roll call vote linked from both the article we're talking about and multiple times by me in this very discussion. To your other point, if your position is that people coming to this page don't care how many votes a judicial candidate got, why do we note them or link to them at all? In all seriousness, the kind of person coming to this page can look at a 50-48 vote and reasonably assume that there were two Senators absent on that particular day. In this particular case there was a third type of vote recorded. It's a unique situation and I think a footnote is called for.  Nevermore27  (talk) 02:48, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Jon Katchen nomination
Jon Katchen withdrew his name from consideration in August, complaining about the delays. Should he still be on this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD08:EC00:94CC:9B47:6F0E:C44F (talk) 04:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * His nomination hasn't been officially withdrawn yet.

Prospective Nomination of Tessa M. Gorman and Kathleen M. O'Sullivan
Per these letters: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5017920-Murray-Letter-to-Grassley-10-22-18.html & https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-10-23%20CEG%20to%20Murray%20-%20Eric%20D.%20Miller%20Nomination.pdf, it appears that the plans to nominate these two individuals to the Western District of Washington collapsed due to Senator Murray's refusal to return a blue slip on the Eric Miller nomination, and thus they will not be nominated to the District Court. I will also note that these nominations have lingered on our pending list since July and that the other nominees from the relevant wave (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-sixteenth-wave-judicial-nominees-sixteenth-wave-united-states-attorney-nominees-eleventh-wave-united-states-marshal-nominees/ ) have since been actually nominated (1 of which has since been confirmed), so it appears the President indeed no longer has intention to nominate Gorman or O'Sullivan.

Based on the above information, I suggest we remove their names from the article.

2610:130:110:1415:BD37:72AB:E8D:7213 (talk) 22:45, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I read the letters, and I would advocate keeping the nominees listed as they currently are, in the "pending" status. Unless the White House announces the withdrawal of Gorman and O'Sullivan, I think we can assume that their status isn't going to change any time soon. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 22:55, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * In this situation, the white house would presumably not even announce withdrawal, as there is nothing to withdraw - nothing was submitted to the Senate, so no need to "unsubmit" anything. So this will likely be all the notice we ever receive of the 'withdrawal' of these never-occured nominations. Essentially the President has abandoned his plans to nominate these individuals, and we're learning of it through these letters. So we can remove them now, or wait until the end of the year, or etc.; but there's no reason to believe these nominations will happen now, and there will be no official withdrawal notice because there's nothing to withdraw as far as the Senate is concerned. 2610:130:101:500:A03E:EF95:C46C:C997 (talk) 01:28, 25 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You raise a fair point. I'll comment out the the links to those two people's pages. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 14:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Move to "nominated"?
I'm not sure why the title of this page uses "appointed" — or, for that matter, similar pages for any president. Federal judges in the United States are nominated by presidents, not appointed. To appoint somebody means to name somebody, as if that is the only step in the process. But judges must also be confirmed by the Senate (as is noted in the page's body). Maybe it should move to List of federal judges nominated by Donald Trump? 73.212.169.184 (talk) 00:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It uses the term "appointed" because that's what the President does. Please go read the Advice and Consent Clause of the Constitution more carefully. The President nominates people (i.e., names them) and then the Senate exercises its "advice and consent," and if it confirms the nominees, then the President appoints them to the offices for which they have been confirmed. The nomination involves sending their name to the Senate with an explanation of which office the President would like to appoint them to. The appointment involves delivering a commission to the confirmed nominees actually granting them the offices once they've been confirmed. So, long story short: you don't have the details of the process or the terminology straight. Federal judges are both nominated (first) and appointed (after Senate confirmation) by the President. And it is "nomination" (rather than "appointment" as you say) that refers to simply naming somebody as a preliminary step in the process, whereas appointment (strictly speaking) is the final step. In theory someone could even be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and then never appointed, if the President, after their confirmation, declined to grant them a commission. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

When did the 115th Congress end?
I'm not sure why this is being disputed, but it appears that we need to discuss this in order to avoid an edit war in violation of the discretionary sanctions on this page. Our own article on the 115th Congress clearly indicates that it ended on January THIRD, not January SECOND. If there are sources which say otherwise, let's see them. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The Congress did end on January 3rd, a few minutes before noon. This has become standard practice to prevent intersession recess appointments. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 18:01, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Mark V. Holmes
Should be he listed under the Tax Court section? I'm a little confused because his article says that he's a Tax Court judge but that his term expired on June 29, 2018. Looks like he was renominated but that the renomination hasn't been acted upon yet. Marquardtika (talk) 22:45, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * He should not be listed at this point in time. He was renominated by Trump last April, but he was not (re)confirmed before his original term expired at the end of June. That nomination was returned to the President on January 3, along with all of the other outstanding judicial nominations, and the President has (so far at least) not re-nominated Holmes again. According to the US Tax Court website, he is currently a Senior Judge, so his page here probably needs to be updated. Hope that helps. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:44, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Ordering of pending nominations
Should the order once reported out of committee be by date of nomination then alphabetical as it is for pending before the committee or should it be the order as it is on executive calendar as that is the probable order of confirmation? Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 15:35, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the order should follow a principle that is generally intelligible to the readers of this page, which the order on the Senate Executive Calendar is not. By status, then date of nomination, then alphabetically is fairly clear and has served this page well for a long time. I also dispute the idea that the order of the "calendar numbers" assigned to nominees in the Executive Calendar bears any meaningful relationship to the order that they will eventually end up being confirmed in. For example, currently William Barr has calendar number 14 with nine nominees "ordered" before him, but cloture has been filed on his nomination and not on the others, so he will be confirmed before them. Once a consent agreement is entered into the Executive Calendar and we know for sure which nominees are going to be voted on in the near future and in what order, it is appropriate to reorder only those nominees in preparation for their actual confirmation votes. Other than that, we should stop trying to predict the future and leave the names in order by date of nomination and then alphabetically by last name. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 00:03, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * But that is not the same because Barr is the only Dept. of Justice pending nominee here they are all Judicial nominees and the fact that they were put in this order which is not the order they were reported out of committee is because that is the likely confirmation order and i agree that it should either way be reported out of committee separate than those pending before the committee as the color changes just make it look disorganized. Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 15:28, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You say it's "not the same," but does the Senate think it's different? If the Senate can vote to confirm Calendar No. 14 (Barr for AG) before Calendar No. 10 (Wheeler for EPA Administrator), both Cabinet-level appointments, what makes you think the Senate can't confirm Calendar No. 19 (Matey for the 3rd Cir.) before Calendar No. 15 (Rushing for the 4th Cir.), both Court of Appeals judges? Do you have any evidence that the Senate views the Calendar order in the way that you do? Because my clear recollection from the last session is that they just confirmed whichever nominees they wanted whenever they wanted (and had the votes to do so). For example, Howard Nielson (District Court nominee for D. Utah) was assigned Calendar No. 675 last year and never got a confirmation vote, whereas many other nominees with later calendar numbers got confirmed, like Lance Walker (District Court nominee for D. Me.) who had Calendar No. 947. As far as I can tell, the Calendar Numbers are in no way a reliable guide to what order the nominees might eventually be confirmed in. If you have sources or evidence that say otherwise, however, I would be happy to learn more. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 21:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Why couldn't things just stay chronological (from the date they were nominated) and then when they're confirmed, they're moved up to whatever relevant numbered judge they'd be? I mean I know the table can be SORTED that way as well, but why not just do it by default? To me it gets confusing when you're going down the list and see dates splayed all over the place, regardless of status. Snickers2686 (talk) 01:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So, you're suggesting that all yet-to-be-confirmed nominees be grouped together sorted solely by nomination date (and then alphabetically by last name), with their status as reported or not having no effect on the default presentation order? Personally, I prefer what we're doing now, but I wouldn't have a problem with that. However, I raise the following points: (1) I think other people find it just as confusing to have the reported and not-reported nominees intermixed as you find having the dates mixed up. (2) When we sort by status and then date, the statuses are reduced to a single color block each and the nomination dates for pending nominees end up in two clear sequences, but if we did not sort by status, there would be much all kinds of color alternation for status and one sequence for the dates. It seems like organizing by status and date results in more overall visual order (especially since the shading is more obviously visually salient than the date sequences). (3) The table already and necessarily has various columns of dates that aren't necessarily in order because the confirmation dates of the confirmed judges don't necessarily line up with their nomination dates (e.g., Carson, who was nominated before seven of the judges who were confirmed before him) or even their commission dates (e.g., Grasz confirmed one day before Willett but commissioned one day later, Scudder and St Eve confirmed one day before Carson and Nalbandian but commissioned the week after, etc.), so having two sequences of nomination dates in the pending nominations section does not seem like a big deal. (4) The big difference is that there is a way to sort the table and get the ordering you prefer (by nomination date), but there is not a way to sort the table and get the entries sorted by status (sorting by the first column gets you confirmed nominees first and then defaults to sorting pending nominations alphabetically). So if we were going to switch to defaulting to your way, I would like to edit the first column in some fashion so that there is a functional way to sort by status. If I've misunderstood what you're suggesting, my apologies. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 15:23, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess I just fundamentally don't understand the point of grouping them via comittee status, when ultimately, regardless, they haven't been confirmed as a federal judge, so in that sense, they're all the same. To me, even if reported and pending nominations are interspersed, the color differentiation sets them apart, but that's just me. I think the only reason they were initially put in alphabetical order is because that's how their renominations were sent to the Senate, again, otherwise I don't think it really matters. I'm honestly trying to remember when consensus was reached abut the color-block grouping and I can't, that's why I ask. Snickers2686 (talk) 20:32, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The point is simply that nominees who have been reported by Committee are one step closer to being confirmed than nominees who haven't been; some nominees are blocked in Committee and never even get a hearing which basically eliminates their chances of being confirmed (like Gordon Giampietro for E.D. Wisc. in the last Congress). This is why we bother shading them to begin with. Some people think that committee status is interesting and relevant enough to group the nominees in this way; evidently you don't. That's all there is to understand. The question at this point is just about what the best default sorting option is. My main point is that if we're going to switch to a different default sorting option, then I would like the table to be edited so that there is some way to achieve a sorting by status, which right now there isn't unless it's the default since none of the columns in the tables contain any piece of data or element which distinguishes between confirmed, reported, nominated, and pending nominees. With regard to the consensus, it was implicit rather than explicit. It was reached in the sense that the page was continually reorganized to achieve status-based block grouping and this practice continued for a long time without objection or interference. If some explicit consensus now develops in favor of a different default ordering, that would obviously be fine, although my vote is in favor of keeping the three-step default ordering (status, date of confirmation/nomination, alphabetical by last name) that we've been using. I hope that helps. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 22:08, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * FWIW I support the current ordering, taking into account stages in the nomination and confirmation process. I would however suggest to list the dates of first nomination in the table and technical re-nominations in the footnotes, rather than the opposite. Judges nominated some time in 2018 now appear to have been suddenly nominated in January 2019, although this is only a technicality of the confirmation process. What do you think? — JFG talk 16:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No it's not a technicality if not renominated it's over so it should stay as a footnote the previous nomination. Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 16:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If a judge is not renominated s/he will be taken off the list. The moment of first nomination remains the most significant date, except for odd cases where a judge was nominated under a previous president, didn't make the cut, and was re-nominated by a new president several years later. — JFG talk 17:03, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I would actually support making the change that JFG is suggesting: to display the original date of nomination for this office by this President in the table (rather than the most recent nomination date) and footnoting the details about the original nomination expiring and being returned and then a second nomination being submitted. I do think this is a fairly significant change, however, that I believe would be different from how this issue has been handled on other similar pages, so I wonder if we should be having a discussion about it somewhere else, like on a project page? So I guess I am cautiously supportive o this idea, providing that we reach some kind of agreement about it and that this ia an appropriate forum for making this kind of decision. I would also be in favor of continuing the discussion in a more appropriate forum if there is one. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * On the "is it just a technicality or not" question, I would point out that the Judiciary Committee advanced almost four dozen judicial nominations last week without holding hearings or receiving any new documentation precisely because the Committee had already considered these nominations in the last session. The Committee did not start its work over, but treated these nominations exactly as if they were nominations they had already seen before and dealt with because that's what they were. So, I think the evidence in how the Senate treats these nominations is that the fact that the nomination expired and was returned and was resubmitted is more or less a technicality. It delays the process and creates a few procedural hurdles, but the nomination is treated in continuity with its previous iteration. Keep in mind also that the Judiciary Committee has three new members, who did not get a chance to hear any of those nominees, and they still treated them as if the Committee's work with them was already complete. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:37, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No as you see they need a new vote in the committee even though they got one before, as for hearings they already had them and it's not actually needed to have a hearing at all to vote them out of committee, so the majority decides not to hold hearings again. Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You think you're disagreeing with me, but you're confirming my point. Name any other circumstance in which the judiciary committee declines to hold a hearing on a judicial nominee. There aren't any. The point is they treat the renomination in continuity with the original nomination. Yes, technically they have to vote on the nomination again, but that is precisely why the "procedural hurdle" which renomination presents (which I mentioned before) should be considered a "technicality". (For that matter, some of them did not get a committee vote before despite having had hearings; they were left in limbo in the committee, but since they had hearings in the previous congress, the committee voted them through without doing any new work in this congress.) LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:05, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't support the change proposed by JFG. It will complicate things (as noted what if they were nominated by a previous president) and won't be consistent with other similar pages. I think the way we order the chart right now is just fine. Besides, it's all temporary until they get confirmed, in which case, there's no real dispute on how to order the confirmed judges.Terrorist96 (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Consistency with previous presidents is not an issue here: all nomination articles for previous presidents should be treated the same. In particular, the Obama page has dozens of judges who had to go through renominations due to confirmation delays, similarly to Trump's nominees. The current approach is misleading readers into thinking that the president only nominated judges en masse in January 2019, whereas some of them have been waiting for their confirmation for a year or more. I support 's suggestion to list the original nomination date only by the same president. The problem does not go away after confirmation: sure, the ordering is then by confirmation date, but the nomination date is still misleading for readers. — JFG talk 08:55, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Since this affects all judicial appointment pages there's probably somewhere else where this should be debated. Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I have notified WT:WikiProject Politics/American politics, Talk:Donald Trump and Talk:Barack Obama to gather more viewpoints from interested editors. — JFG talk 16:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Completely agree with JFG: the current approach is misleading, and the problem does not go away once they're confirmed, we just change which date we're using for the default order. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the current approach of by status then date then alphabetic is good. For the ones in question at Pending (yellow) it does not appear to be a large number or prolonged period even for the District Courts and the Rn notes convey renomination info well. I would NOT order pending by the executive colander for three reasons:  First, nomination date reflects the historical ordering and the topical focus being that of a list of appointments.  Second, implementation of alternative by calendar seems problematic by  implementation requires slightly harder edits reordering or even having editors know what to do, and inherently is slightly OR / SPECULATION guessing it will reflect potential order of confirmation.  But Third — I just don’t see much point to doing the alternative.  There is not that many in Pending state or there for all that long, and from the long term view of EVENTUAL the finer detail of procedure steps has less or no importance, as partly reflected by the status order being the highest level of ordering.  For the calendar information to even be meaningful the article would have to add or link to article material explaining the process.  (Which the article should already have regardless, just to be more informative of what follows nomination.) As side notes, I do not find the notion of intermingled colors horrible if things go that way.  I also suggest considering simply doing separate tables for the few cases where Pending exists is an option. (The status before confirmation does not have the data fields of after confirmation, so being in one table is a bit odd.). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:35, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Understood. And what do you think of the option to sort people by their initial nomination date instead of their re-nomination? — JFG talk 16:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I would prefer date be by initial nomination date, as reflecting the history of appearance in the table and as minimising change, and just easier to maintain. I just don’t see enough cases or clarity to make the alternatives worthwhile.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:38, 15 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm withdrawing the request as the senate just took up the miller nomination prior to rushing even though rushing is listed first on executive calendar. Psalms79&#59;6-7 (talk) 22:06, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Why make the distinction of using the first date that the current president nominates the judge? Why not then use the very first date (if the person was nominated by a previous president)? That issue alone I think merits including the most recent nomination date in the chart and then noting all the previous (failed) nominations from the past (the current president and any previous presidents if applicable). A failed nomination date is not as important as the most recent nomination date that led to the (potential) confirmation. (Sorry, this thread is getting big and I don't know the best place to put this comment so I'm just putting it at the end).Terrorist96 (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If I'm understanding you correctly, it already works like that. Check the "Rn" footnotes. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 18:54, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, and I want it to stay that way and not change it as is being proposed here.Terrorist96 (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Alright, I misunderstood your intent, then. My apologies! – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 19:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump&oldid=868731266


 * I don't believe the way the page is currently structured is how it worked in the past. In the past, nominations were first sorted by date and then the shading was changed if they were reported from committee, but they were NOT moved to the top of the list, right below confirmed judges. If anything, the new layout of the page is diverging from the previously established norm of structure. See this revision and this one, for examples. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 19:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * See, that's what I thought. I've worked on these pages in the past and they weren't structured by color blocking before. And the one example you point out is as recent as November 2018, so where the switch come into effect now in February 2019? I don't get it. I still say we should revert back to the "old way" and organize by date, regardless of name, committee status, etc... Snickers2686 (talk) 20:52, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. The sorting made far more sense with the past method. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 02:23, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the sorting by nomination date is better, and the OP has withdrawn his/her proposal to take committee reporting date into account. There remains the debate I introduced about displaying the date of first nomination (by the same president) instead of renomination. Do we have consensus? I count three editors in favor of the first nomination date (JFG, LacrimosaDiesIlla, Markbassett), one who'd prefer to keep the renomination date (Terrorist96), and three who haven't expressed a view. Which variant do you support? — JFG talk 16:56, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry for inserting this so high, but I was afraid it wouldn't make sense further down since I've missed a few days of discussion. I accept that my memory was faulty about how the page used to work, and I am sorry for having insisted on the point so strenuously. If there is a preference for leaving the table unsorted by committee status, I can live with that (although I repeat once again my desire to edit the table in some way so as to give readers an opportunity to achieve that sorting). But I would also like to point out that the OP (who I see was really a sock who has been indefinitely blocked) was not asking for sorting by committee status, but rather for sorting within the "reported by Committee" group according to their numbering on the Senate Executive Calendar, a sorting which was completely opaque and useless (since it did not indicate in what order the nominees might be confirmed, as the OP realized, leading to the withdrawal of the request). So the withdrawn proposal (sorting according to Senate Executive Calendar number) is a different (albeit related) matter from this one (sorting by committee status), and then there is the third matter still being discussed below (listing original nomination date by this president, rather than by most recent one). Thanks everyone for your attention to these questions. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 15:28, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Pinging more contributors to this page. Should we display the date of first nomination or the date of renomination? — JFG talk 17:02, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. I think it makes sense to display the date of first nomination rather than the date of renomination. Marquardtika (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Just noting that (the OP) is a sock of  (pinged above) and both are currently indef-blocked. ~Awilley (talk) 20:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Jeez. Good catch! — JFG talk 21:19, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I think we should stick to what we have now. Some of the judges nominated by Trump were originally nominated by Bush and Obama -- so would we put the original nomination date, or only the nomination date under Trump? It's not unusual for judges or any other appointee to be renominated because of a new session of Congress, and I think it's more "correct" to list the current nomination date. The footnotes noting the original nomination dates are helpful, and they are sufficient for me. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify: the idea is to list the first nomination by the same president, which often gets interrupted by technicalities of the senate calendar (renominations routinely happen under most presidents, and they should all be treated the same way). If we show the first nomination date in the table, then the footnote would document any intervening renominations. — JFG talk 21:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but I still prefer the current format since a renomination is technically a new nomination even if under the same president. Also, I think the article is formatted in a good and clear way as it is. I wouldn't strongly object if it's changed, but I would prefer the status quo. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 02:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * One point which may affect how we're thinking about this is that the article itself is actually about appointments to the federal courts by Donald Trump, rather than nominations (although seemingly a lot of people are using the article as a way to track nominations right now). Consequently the details about nominations should be seen as subservient to the larger purpose of cataloguing Trump's judicial appointments, a perspective which may make editors more comfortable with the idea of switching to displaying the initial nomination date by President Trump (and relegating renomination as well as prior nomination by a different president to footnotes) since what would seem to be most apposite in this case is how Trump came to appoint these particular people to the Courts, rather than how their nominations played out. (If this were an article about nominations, then presumably we would actually list each nomination of each candidate separately—resulting in some people being listed more than once—with an indication of its ultimate disposition, including both failed nominations like Bounds and Farr and returned nominations like Matey and Nielson.) Just a thought. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable. I think we can go ahead and switch to first nomination dates; I count 5 editors in favor, two against, and one relatively neutral. Time to try it. — JFG talk 00:25, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of using the original nomination date (under the same president) and having a note or reference saying that their nomination had been expired and renominated. This would have the add-on benefit of allowing us to combine references that can get crowded down there. Apologies if I'm repeating any points from above, I didn't read the whole thing.  Nevermore27  (talk) 23:38, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If we go with the original nomination by the current president, then how will any previous and subsequent nominations be noted? Currently it's easy because we list the current nomination date then note previous nominations in chronological order. If we now choose to list the first nomination by the current president, then in the notes what will be mentioned in what order? Also, what if the president's term gets completed by the VP and the VP renominates the judge(s)? Will we list the date of the original nomination by the president or the VP? It's technically not the VP's presidency as he can run for president two times after his term. Or even if the VP temporarily fills in for the president. This is to illustrate that limiting the nomination date to who nominated the judge is not a good distinction. We should either list the most current nomination date (cuz if there is no current nomination the person won't be listed at all) or the very first nomination date regardless of president (not preferred but at least it won't be subject to some of the quirky examples I noted).Terrorist96 (talk) 01:05, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Edge cases can be handled when we see them happen. Was there actually a case in history when a VP-turned-president renominated judges from his predecessor? I think we should stick to nominations by the same person, whether President or Vice President, but let's discuss this only when we have an actual case to handle, i.e. perhaps on the List of federal judges appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson. (I don't see any renominations there; amazingly, judges were always confirmed within a few weeks, ô blessed days of efficiency!) Footnotes can very well explain each particular situation; as noted by there will be fewer footnotes when packs of renominations are handled in a single footnote. — JFG talk 01:19, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Maybe examples would help?

Current: Proposed:


 * That example is the simplest version. What about a more complex one like the nomination of Patrick J. Bumatay? His original nomination date by Trump was for the appeals court and his current nomination is for the district court. Would we list the original date (even though it was for a different court)? There will be more questions like this that we constantly have to figure out if we don't want to list the current/most recent/active nomination date on the chart. Or for other judges that were renominated to the same court, but for a different seat. Or for courts like the Tax Court (e.g. Mark V. Holmes) which have terms. My point is that in including the original nomination date in the main chart it may be perceived as simplifying, but opens it up to many inconsistencies for different/exceptional cases that will have to be figured out on a case-by-case basis.Terrorist96 (talk) 01:44, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There's nothing preventing us from adding supplemental references when necessary, I think you're making this more complicated than it has to be.  Nevermore27  (talk) 01:50, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I was already in favor of using initial nomination date (by this president), but seeing the examples of how it would look, I am even more in favor. I do think that Terrorist96 is making this question more complicated than it needs to be. The Bumatay case is unusual, and technically it's not an example of "renomination" at all. It's an example of "another nomination." He was not nominated to the Ninth Circuit and then renominated. He was nominated to the Ninth Circuit and then nominated to the District Court. (If the new nomination was for a non-judicial position, like Director of the CIA, nobody would even consider calling it a "renomination." But nomination to a different judicial office should be treated similarly. If Clarence Thomas had died in January and Bumatay had been nominated to a higher office on the Supreme Court, instead of a lower one on the District Court, would you be trying to call that a "renomination"?) Obviously the right answer in that case is to put the original nomination date by this president for this office. If we want to include the information about the previous nomination to the Ninth Circuit in a footnote we can, but I'd also be okay with leaving it out entirely. (I'm not sure it's relevant enough to be included in this article; just as this article now makes no reference at all to the failed Ninth Circuit nomination of Ryan Bounds. But obviously, Bumatay's previous nomination to the Ninth Circuit will still be covered in his own article.) Also, for those who were asking about what happens when Vice Presidents succeed to the Presidency midterm, the Johnson example actually shows that various nominations were just processed after the Presidential transition, and then the new President had the choice to appoint those nominees to the offices for which they had been confirmed or not. The first Court of Appeals nominee and the first District Court nominees on the Johnson page show that they were nominated by Kennedy but appointed by Johnson. Johnson didn't even renominate them; their original nominations by one President were processed by the Senate and then the confirmed nominees were appointed by a different president. But obviously, they belong on the Johnson page because they were "federal judges appointed by Lyndon Johnson" regardless of when or by whom they were nominated. If we end up with renominations in the future after some other Vice President succeeds to the Presidency, we can figure out how to deal with them then. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 15:41, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Initially opposed. Questions presented:
 * Re: First Nomination Date
 * 1) If we use the original nomination date, then does that mean previous administrations/lists have to be altered as well or will they be grandfathered in?
 * 2) If it comes down to the footnote of a particular nomination, whereas a reader would see "John Smith was nominated on (insert date) and renominated on (insert date)" from a conceptional point I understand what you’re suggesting but to me it doesn’t make a difference if you have to rely on the footnote/notation for the same information regardless of what date is displayed.
 * 3) Just glancing over the CR or the nominations in the Judiciary Committee, it shows when a nomination was returned, to me, that means it died. That person has to subsequently be renominated under a "new" nomination, hence a different date than the original nomination date, thereby also meaning a new CR number, a new Executive Calendar position, etc., all anew, not the same, in theory. So, I support the standard being used currently. My other question pertains to wikitables for each individual court: Once a consensus is reached, and say it is using the original date, does that then mean said tables need footnotes too? Snickers2686 (talk) 05:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * To your point 1, article listing judge nominations by prior presidents should be amended in the same way as this one. To point 2, you can see from the example above that a single footnote would cover several expired+renominated cases, thus making them lighter and drawing attention to those footnotes that do explain a special situation. To your point 3, it's a matter of point of view: some people see the dropping+renomination as a technicality, others think it really starts afresh. In my opinion, the current presentation is misleading for readers. — JFG talk 06:13, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * (1) Yes, I think articles for prior presidents should also be altered if consensus is reached, which is why I repeatedly asked above if there was a better place to have this discussion. (2) If it really doesn't make a difference to you, but it does make a difference to the majority of other editors considering this question, isn't that a reason for you to yield to their preference? (3) Yes, the renomination is actually a new nomination; everyone in this discussion (as far as I can tell) admits that and agrees on it. The question, as JFG has just said, is whether this should be viewed as a technicality or not; I have argued at length above for why I think it is a technicality. The fact that the renominations are often submitted in gigantic batches, so soon after having been returned, and without any truly fresh nominations suggests that it's a technicality from the White House's perspective. So does the fact that the White House didn't apparently go back to the drawing board and consider candidates for each vacancy de novo (i.e., they didn't go through a whole process and just happen to decide to nominate someone they'd already nominated before). So does the way that the Judiciary Committee processes these renominations, i.e., at the first available opportunity without holding new hearings. The various numbers and calendar positions (which you cite as evidence that the nomination is a new nomination) are all meaningless anyway: that's just bureaucratic labeling—practically the definition of a technicality—which, again, has no connection to when or even in what order the nominations will finally be voted on by the full Senate. (3b) The question about wikitables for each individual court is a non-issue. The tables on the pages for individual courts do not show nomination dates (or confirmation dates) at all. So there's no need to footnote anything there. (There are already footnotes in appropriate places in the "appointed by" column to explain weird things like who appointed the judge to what position when their listed position was the result of "operation of law" or something like that.) LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In light of responses to your questions, are you still opposed, or would you accept a listing by first nomination date? (to be tried here first but then applied everywhere consistently) — JFG talk 00:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not directing this at you, just responding to your inquiry. To me, it seems like the decision has already been made by one editor because apparently what I raised was a non-issue, yet I don't see an answer from a practical standpoint. (i.e. when nominations are returned, do they get hidden until a new session convenes and then reinserted with the original nomination date, same question for wikitables?) I'm just trying to figure out the practical side of this as an editor, not the bureaucratic side from a political perspective, as has been suggested. Do I support the supposed changes? No. Opposed. Do I think the footnotes can ultimately be condensed a little more? Yes. Snickers2686 (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The issues you raised are absolutely worth examining; I gave you my answers, and gave his. On balance, I think the mention of original nomination dates is more informative to readers, and the practical aspects are just as hard one way or the other. To your specific question, when nominations are returned, do they get hidden until a new session convenes, I would be in favor of keeping them visible, marked in a different color. If a nominated person does not re-appear after a couple months, while others from the same batch are back on track, then s/he can be removed. Thanks for your contributions to the debate. — JFG talk 17:47, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * But why a couple months? Why not a couple weeks or half a year? My point being it's subjective and open to interpretation instead of a hard and fast rule like how it is right now.Terrorist96 (talk) 18:07, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Simply because that's the typical delay between the formal return of a nomination and the subsequent re-nomination. Happened under all recent presidencies. According to our series of articles, Senate used to be more efficient in the '60s, handling most nominations within a few weeks, not months or years… — JFG talk 19:09, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Honestly, the fact that we include any nominations prior to confirmation and actual appointment is already a judgment call. Personally, if we do switch the nomination dates, I would have no problem leaving returned nominations (suitably color-coded) in place until either (1) the nomination is resubmitted, (2) someone else is nominated for the position instead, (3) Trump leaves office, or (4) some reliable source indicates that the nominee is no longer under consideration (due to death, withdrawal, or some other factor). LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 02:20, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * These are sensible criteria on removing nominees, I endorse this approach. — JFG talk 04:28, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Checking back into the discussion as I seem to have missed the pings. I do not support this change. From a layman's point of view, listing the original nomination date and then the confirmation date (along with the vote) makes it seem as if that specific, original nomination was confirmed. In fact, the most recent presidential nomination of the judge went through all of the steps needed to make it to final confirmation. In the Senate's eyes, every nomination is treated separately, having to receive another committee vote (after nominees turn in new, updated questionnaires and financial disclosures), receive a new number/position on the executive calendar, and then receive cloture and confirmation votes (I recognize the argument that the White House is just blanketly renominating prior nominees, but advise and consent is both an executive and legislative action, and renominations are made because of the Senate's rules, not because the White House feels like refreshing the process at the start of the year). Listing the most recent nomination date (i.e. the one PN that made it to confirmation) is the most prudent choice, in my opinion, and all prior nominations should be listed in the footnotes section, in order to illustrate the exact nomination history. As for the discussion about the inclusion of the nominees still pending before the Senate, I would support temporarily commenting out each nominee until if/when they are confirmed. This article is about the president's appointments, and no previous articles in the series currently list failed nominations, because nomination and appointment (we all seem to agree on this point) are two very different actions part of the advise and consent process. In short, I roughly support the status quo, aside from the one modification of hiding pending nominations. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 03:34, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think this change would convey that "a specific original nomination was confirmed", rather the table can be read as "a specific person was nominated and eventually confirmed". You and I understand the procedural details, but casual readers don't. We can also read the table as "there is a vacant seat for which a person has been nominated" instead of "this person is today at that stage in the appointment process". To your other point, the only reason that our lists for prior presidents do not list failed nominations is because there are no longer any pending appointments. When Obama was in office, Wikipedia tracked nominees just like it does today for Trump. I believe hiding the current nominees would be a huge disservice to our readers. — JFG talk 04:38, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * What said. In short, speculating about what "casual readers" may think if they're not even going to bother reading the footnotes that we're providing only reveals our own biases. Why not say that the current way misleads casual readers into thinking that Trump never considered nominating these people for federal judgeships until the date of their most recent nomination? Beyond that, I must insist that (1) this article does not list failed nominations (Ryan Bounds and Thomas Farr are gone!), (2) returned nominations are not really failed nominations, (3) even more so pending nominations are not even close to being failed nominations, and (4) given that every other appointments page relating to the Trump presidency that I'm aware of includes nominees once they're known even prior to their confirmation, let alone their actual appointment, I would be quite strongly opposed to adopting a different standard on this page which prevented current nominations from being displayed. Last point: I would actually support including even actual failed nominations (welcome back, Ryan Bounds and Thomas Farr!) on this page since I think it would do our readers a greater service to include all people that this administration actually saw fit to nominate for federal judgeships, even (or perhaps especially) the ones which turned out to be unconfirmable for one reason or another. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:42, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I oppose including failed nominations, mostly for consistency, as none of the other "List of federal judges appointed by..." articles include them either (see List of federal judges appointed by Barack Obama, who had many failed nominations, for example). --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 19:04, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I know we don't currently include them in any of the other articles either, but I would favor including them everywhere. (Or developing some other place where they could be placed.) I, too, like consistency, but consistency can work both ways. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it would be interesting to have a section for failed nominations, but that's not really the issue at hand in this section.  Nevermore27  (talk) 08:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm missing the point here, but with this talk of including failed nominees, I thought that was already the purpose of Donald Trump judicial appointment controversies which shows said failed nominees, no? Am I missing something? Snickers2686 (talk) 20:18, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The issue is that controversial nominations isn't necessarily the same thing as failed nominations.  Nevermore27  (talk) 20:03, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

This discussion has run its course, and covered many subjects with no clear consensus. Started an RfC about the display of nomination dates. — JFG talk 08:22, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Nomination dates for federal judges
Should the tables of federal judge appointments display as nomination date: This rule would apply to appointment lists by all presidents. — JFG talk 07:37, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * A. the date when they were first nominated?
 * B. the date when they were renominated after the original nomination expired without a congressional decision?
 * Per discussion above, edge cases would be handled this way:
 * Nominations of the same judge by a previous president should be mentioned in a dedicated footnote. In such cases, the table would display the first nomination date by the current president (option A) or the latest renomination date (option B).
 * Nominations of the same judge to a different seat should be mentioned in a dedicated footnote. The table would display the nomination date to the current seat.
 * Failed nominations should be removed from the table (as they are today).
 * Returned nominations should remain in place and suitably color-coded until either (1) the nomination is resubmitted, (2) someone else is nominated for the same seat, (3) the nominating president leaves office, or (4) some reliable source indicates that the nominee is no longer under consideration (due to death, withdrawal, or some other factor).
 * Please discuss these and potential other edge cases in the section, so as not to clutter responses to the main question. — JFG talk 07:43, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: I have announced this RfC at the talk pages of the equivalent lists for the five prior presidents (since Reagan). — JFG talk 23:25, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Option A

 * Renominations

Option B

 * Renominations

Edge cases
This would be an excerpt of the District Courts table as of January 15, 2019, i.e. after expiry of 2018 nominations and before renominations. It also includes two examples of nominations by a prior president, including one to a different seat. 
 * Renominations

Survey

 * Option A – More informative to readers; less clutter in footnotes. — JFG talk 07:39, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * OPtion A Renominations are mainly just administrative and not relevant to the reader. Reywas92Talk 01:57, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A (as long as renominated in consecutive session). Renominations occur due to the end of the congressional session, and are generally not informative. As long a judge has been renominated in the consecutive session to the same position he was nominated in the previous session - I would got with the original date. In the odd case where the nomination lapses, the candidate was not renominated, but was then renominated in a session subsequent to the consecutive session (or in the consecutive session to a different position) I would go with the renomination date. In short - as long as it is a technical extension, it is my belief this is not informative. Icewhiz (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A Far more intuitive, and per Reywas92 the renoms aren't as relevant. The original date is what matters. ModerateMike729 (talk) 20:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A is more intuitive, sensible, and informative to readers. Marquardtika (talk) 15:07, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A  Nevermore27  (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A — I agree with all of the comments above and have already expressed my own thoughts in detail on this point before. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
 * (weak) Option B: I'm OK with Option A, particuarly because it has fewer footnotes, but I think Option B is better, since it is more straightforward (no need to worry about "odd" situations, such as a renomination by a different president), and any type of renomination is technically a new nomination, which Option B is clearer about. ---1990&#39;sguy (talk) 19:19, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Both options involve "worrying" about "odd" situations. The only difference is that Option B is what we're already doing and so how to handle them is already baked in, whereas with Option A we have to figure out what to do, but the situations are the same and we've already got a variety of weirdo footnotes handling odd situations (look at Karen Gren Scholer where we mention her previous nomination by a different President to a seat on a different court). And I don't see how either option is any clearer about the fact that "any type of renomination is technically a new nomination"; neither option addresses that claim directly and in order to understand the sequence of (and relationship between) nomination and renomination under either option, you have to actually read the footnotes, both versions of which seem equally "clear" to me with regard to the fact of one nomination expiring and a new one being made subsequently. What the two options do is place the emphasis in different places and certainly reasonable people can disagree on where the emphasis should be placed, but I don't see how this is a matter of clarity. The fact is that what we're discussing is what the best top-line summary of the full story is; both options involve taking a shortcut and presenting only a partial picture. The only alternative I see that might be "clearer" would be to list all relevant (re)nomination dates in the table, and then have a footnote explaining that all but the last one had expired and the nomination had been renewed however many times. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:21, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A  Dlambe3 

Discussion
Would you please give an example of what you propose to do in the case of a Trump nominee originally nominated by a previous president (Bush, Obama, etc.)? This isn't an important question for appeals courts nominees, but it is for district court nominees. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 16:34, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure. That's one of the edge cases mentioned in the RfC explanation: display the first nomination date by the current president (option A), or the latest renomination (option B), and in both cases mention the nomination by a previous president in a footnote. Is it unclear? — JFG talk 18:12, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Did you mean I should add an example of this case in the A and B tables? — JFG talk 18:14, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, an example in the two tables would be helpful to see what it looks like visually. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 18:43, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ — JFG talk 23:12, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the timeline is for closing this survey, although the discussion has been quiet for almost two weeks and it seems pretty clear that those interested have reached a consensus, but in the meantime I have restored some kind of logic to the ordering of district court nominees on this page (by nomination date and then alphabetically, without regard for committee status), something which has not been true for quite a while. Obviously, once the survey closes, the implementation of Option A (which seems to be where we are headed) will require adjusting the nomination dates for many of these nominees and then reordering accordingly. (FWIW, this was not my preferred method for organizing nominees, but it seemed to be the consensus view in the previous discussion, so I have implemented it. If there is interest in some other method of organization, we can reopen that discussion.) LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 13:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * RfCs normally run for 30 days. We can either wait until 2 April or request an early close due to clear consensus. I'd recommend waiting, because some editors are reminded automatically of open RfCs during the last week, so that new comments may be added in the next few days. — JFG talk 18:13, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The 30 days is up, the RfC has been closed, and there is an obvious consensus in favor of Option A, so can we begin implementation? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * RfC was not formally closed, but the consensus is obvious. Just go ahead if you feel like doing the job. I'll ask for an uninvolved close just for process' sake. — JFG talk 19:33, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Implementation of RfC consensus
I have now updated this article to display initial nomination dates, according to the RfC consensus. When several people were nominated on the same date, and have not yet been confirmed, I have sorted them alphabetically. Now that the footnotes are less cluttered, we could debate whether nominations by prior presidents should still be mentioned. After all, such nominations have their own articles, and the pool of career judges to choose from is the same no matter which president is in office. — JFG talk 08:48, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The RfC we just went through specifically said that nominations by previous presidents would be included in footnotes and nobody in the survey or discussion questioned that aspect of the proposal. The recent discussion prior to the RfC also seemed fine with continuing to mention nominations by previous presidents, so I see no need or reason to open such a discussion now. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:48, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Fine. — JFG talk 14:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

There is a strange case with Howard C. Nielson Jr., who was initially nominated in 2017, and renominated in 2019, skipping the 2018 expiry and renomination. I believe he should have the same footnote as Matthew J. Kacsmaryk and Daniel D. Domenico, but I'll defer to process experts such as. — JFG talk 10:00, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Since he wasn't returned in 2018 why should we say he was ? SCAH (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, he wasn't? Then we should just say his nomination expired in January 2018, not January 2019. — JFG talk 14:50, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry I meant his nomination didn't expire in 2018 only in 2019. SCAH (talk) 14:55, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Right. As SCAH mentions, Nielson's nomination was not returned at the beginning of 2018 as most of the other pending judicial nominations were, so he was only renominated once, unlike Kacsmaryk and Domenico, and thus he needs to have a different note from them because his process was different (cf. Joel Carson, who was nominated to the 10th Circuit in December 2017 and whose nomination was not returned to the president in January 2018; he was confirmed in May 2018 without ever having been renominated). Nielson's initial nomination lasted until the beginning of this year. All nominations always expire (and are returned to the President) at the end of a Congress (i.e., the end of that Congress's second "session" at the beginning of an odd year), but the Senate can choose whether or not to return them to the President at the end of the first session of a Congress (i.e., at the beginning of an even year). In Nielson's case, the nomination was not returned. In Kacsmaryk and Domenico's, the nominations were returned. Hope that makes sense. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:56, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I'm glad I deferred to process experts on this one! — JFG talk 15:00, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Should the pages for earlier Presidents' appointments be changed to fit with this standard? Bush 41's page seems to be the earliest with this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:300:C930:8D20:2ED3:ED8A:6CE2 (talk) 02:54, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. I have made the changes for List of federal judges appointed by Barack Obama. Could somebody double-check my work? — JFG talk 09:28, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems good. What of the earlier presidents? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:8CCF:64F8:6673:C751:A5FA (talk) 04:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * We'll have to do the work there some day as well. — JFG talk 21:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Bush 41 only has two such examples, while Clinton and Bush 43 have considerably more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.209.29.11 (talk) 23:50, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I just updated List of federal judges appointed by George W. Bush. That was a long one indeed: down from 50 to 13 footnotes. I'd appreciate a third-party check. — JFG talk 18:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Good work. A couple minor adjustments, mostly adding some missing commas. Thanks for your diligence. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:08, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Clinton's page is the only one left to take care of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:241:301:8CCF:747C:B4E6:7CB0:7320 (talk) 03:11, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Future vacancies not yet on official court website
There are news reports from reliable sources of an upcoming judicial vacancy (Chris Droney, on the 2nd Circuit), but the upcoming vacancy hasn't been added to the 'future vacancies in the federal judiciary' page that the court system provides. See for instance https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-judge-droney-retiring-trump-20190415-zkehgcvxrrhdlozi44bimr57zi-story.html. Should the 'announced federal judicial vacancies that will occur [later]' in the front matter of the article be updated accordingly? It currently says there is one announced vacancy in the circuit courts (Dennis Jacobs, also in the Second Circuit, whose vacancy is listed on the court site), but if we include Droney then there are two upcoming circuit court vacancies. AaronCanton (talk) 20:18, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and included the future vacancy in the count. I have an e-mail out to the courts to see what their response is. I probably won't know anything until tomorrow at the earliest though. Snickers2686 (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Shading
Why are two different yellows being used? Is that intentional? I’d like to change it for consistency, but not if there’s a reason for it. Dlambe3 (talk) 20:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the lighter shade of yellow denoted judges whose nomination has expired, but for whom a renomination is expected. A bunch of them were indeed renominated today (May 21st). — JFG talk 21:44, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
 * If that was indeed the second shade of yellow being referred to, its usage on this page has been to indicate nominations which have been announced by the White House but not yet formally submitted to the Senate. The 12 renominations had been announced for some time before they were resubmitted, but before they were re-announced those rows were simply hidden. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Lisa M. Schenck nomination
The shade on the chart indicates she was reported to the full Senate by the Armed Services Committee. But I am unable to find any record of a vote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD08:EC00:9D07:F03B:989:1053 (talk) 22:47, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Try here. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 16:32, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Kevin Sweazea bio
I found a pretty comprehensive biography of Kevin Sweazea, the Federal Magistrate Judge nominated today. I hope you find it useful, as he has no wikipedia page yet.

https://www.nmd.uscourts.gov/news/honorable-kevin-sweazea-appointed-us-magistrate-judge — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD08:EC00:69A5:D1B8:B285:FF1C (talk) 22:23, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Phipps
I am trying to follow the rules in place according to the discretionary sanctions in place on this page, which is why I didn't simply undo your reversion of my edit. FJC (the source we use for all of the information about commission dates, end dates, etc.) does not show Phipps as having terminated his District Court service yet, and that termination is not automatic upon receipt of his commission to the appellate bench (cf. Engelhardt, who continued serving as Chief Judge of his district court for several days after receiving his Fifth Circuit commission). I explained all of this in my edit summary; you explained nothing in yours. Why then did you undo my edit? What evidence do you have for listing Phipps's district court service as having terminated? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:01, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You restored information that had recently been added and removed repeatedly and did so apparently without consulting the talk page discussion, despite ample evidence in the revision history that something was going on here. FJC still doesn't validate your edit. Please consider self-reverting. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 14:35, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Another future vacancy not on the 'future vacancies' website
Jay Bybee of the 9th Circuit has announced that he's taking senior status at the end of the year ( https://biglawbusiness.com/trump-to-get-another-9th-cir-appointment-jay-bybee-seat-opening ), but that hasn't been added to the official 'future vacancies' page that the DoJ runs. Should we update the 'future vacancies' section of the front matter now, or wait until the future vacancies page on the DoJ website updates? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.106.115.182 (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No, we shouldn't update our numbers. We should do what we've done in the past, which is wait for our official source to catch up. This vacancy has been known (in the press) for weeks, and this page has been just fine without it. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 03:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * (The first comment in this subsection was mine--I had accidentally logged out and hadn't noticed). We've got multiple future circuit court vacancies which aren't on the us courts site now--Bybee and Tjoflat--and I think we're at the point where we do need to list them in order to keep the page accurate and informative. I added some text to the front matter to describe why they are separately sourced, and I included the secondary sources which verify the upcoming vacancies. AaronCanton (talk) 07:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The entry was undone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.209.29.11 (talk) 18:10, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I stand by what I said before. We should wait for USCourts to catch up. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 20:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, a nominee to the seat has been announced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.209.29.11 (talk) 02:24, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Judicial appointment controversies page
I added a stalled nominee to the page this morning (September 10, 2019). I listed Steven Menashi, who has been attacked fiercely for his past legal articles. He's one of Trump's most controversial Circuit Court nominees. But someone removed my addition even though I included links proving it. Does anyone here control the content of the judicial controversies page, which is linked to this one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD08:EC00:D5AA:7F62:6BCE:D316 (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Philip M. Halpern bio
I've noticed that it's hard to make additions to biographies of judges. I've made a few and they're almost always deleted. That happens even when I provide links proving them.

There is one big thing about Phillip Halpern's nomination. He was recommended to Trump by Jeanine Pirro of "Justice With Jeanine" fame. Halpiern is a longtime friend of the Pirro family. He was a partner in the same law firm as Pirro's husband. Would someone affiliated with wikipedia include this, as I keep getting deleted?

Trump has nominated and the Senate has confirmed five individuals who were rated "not qualified"
The fact this reverted edit may also be appropriate for Donald Trump judicial appointment controversies does not mean it is inappropriate in this article

And HuffPo has not been ruled as unreliable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

I propose the edit be restored. soibangla (talk) 18:28, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree. This article merely lists individuals who have been nominated and confirmed. The decision as to whether an individual is qualified for the job is a matter for the president who chooses to nominate and the senators who decide whether to confirm. How the American Bar Association judged the qualification of those whom the president chose to nominate is not relevant for this article. Birtig (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is a list, not an analysis. What various interest groups think of the nominees is more appropriate to Donald Trump judicial appointment controversies, if it belongs anywhere. --Coemgenus (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree with all of the preceding 2 comments.AaronCanton (talk) 18:41, 23 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Although it's a List, it also has a lead with a narrative, so I see no valid reason why the sentence should be excluded from that narrative, but this is as far as I choose to argue the matter. soibangla (talk) 21:40, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

M Miller Baker
Does anyone know why M Miller Baker has yet to receive his commission the Court of International Trade? He was confirmed on August 1. Dlambe3 (talk) 01:41, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Coincidentally, I was just about to ask that same question on this talk page. It's odd he hasn't begun his tenure after more than three months. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 16:39, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Not that it answers the question but he's still at his firm McDermott Will & Emery (Shemtov613 (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2019 (UTC))

D.C. Superior Court
Does anyone have an opinion on whether judges of the D.C. Superior Court are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages? I know they are appointed by the president but I don't think they are Article III. I created Carmen Guerricagoitia McLean and Jonathan Pittman awhile back. I was thinking of creating pages for other D.C. Superior Court judges but wanted to get some feedback here first (I will also post this at WikiProject United States courts and judges). Marquardtika (talk) 16:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I would lean in favor of doing so. In fact, I was a bit surprised to see that they weren't included when I saw the Senate confirming them. Including them would mean we would have to track all those they Senate has confirmed so far. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 15:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm personally opposed. I think it makes more sense to keep this page for judges at the federal level--all the article 3 judges (District/Circuit/Supreme/International Trade), territorial courts which essentially function as federal courts for US territories, and tribunals with nationwide jurisdiction. D.C. Superior Court doesn't fit either of those categories; it's essentially the equivalent of a state court for D.C. If we have a page listing all the various judges of the state courts, it might be appropriate to include it there, but not here. AaronCanton (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Color Coding
Should there be another color to denote those who haven't had a committee hearing yet? 148.77.10.25 (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Article 1 update
There are now two vacancies on the vet appeals court, and a third opening on the tax court, a fourth will open Jan 2 when another judge ages out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:9080:BC30:B0E8:23C8:9551:55AE (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

List of Nominees being returned to the President
The following nominees failed to receive unanimous consent to remain on the calendar past 2019 and thus are expected to be returned to the President on January 3. They must be renominated.

Ozerden Brasher* Blumenfeld* Rosen* Scarsi* Sweazea Wilson* Anelle-Rocha* Braverman* Leal* Matthews* Richmond* Holsom* Johnson* Kim* Kindred* Petitt* Robinson* Togilatti* Cronan* Hardy* Heil III* Joseph* Lan* Schelp* Vaden* Epstein* Schwartz* Obermann* Davis* Meyers* Holmes* Laurer*

On the 3rd I will be returning these nominees to "intended nomination" state until plans for renomination are announced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.225.96.32 (talk) 21:31, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Asterisk=Has since been renominated
 * changes have now been made

Duplicate articles
Fellow editors,

We REALLY need to be more observant and careful so we don't create duplicate articles regarding a nominee, as there were two articles for a nominee that was announced today, John Leonard Badalamenti and John L. Badalamenti, both created within an hour of each other. Snickers2686 (talk) 21:10, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Mitch McConnell's increased politicization of courts rush, add?
Mitch McConnell has been privately contacting sitting federal judges and urging them to retire so they can be replaced while the Republicans still hold the Senate and the White House. McConnell and other Senate Republicans have contacted an unknown number of Republican-nominated judges who are eligible to retire and reminding them that if they don’t retire soon they may have to wait another eight years before they can leave under another Republican administration. More than 90 Republican-nominated judges are either currently eligible or will become eligible this year to enter “senior status,” which allows their spots on the bench to be filled, even though they’ll still be allowed to hear cases, hire clerks, and receive full pay. X1\ (talk) 06:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * McConnell Has a Request for Veteran Federal Judges: Please Quit March 16, 2020 NYTimes.com
 * I would like some more cites saying that, before we add such a potentially defamatory statement. Bettering the Wiki (talk) 03:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , some more refs


 * https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/mitch-mcconnell-pressures-judges-to-retire-trump
 * https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/487982-mcconnell-urging-gop-appointed-judges-to-retire-this-year-report
 * https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/16/mitch-mcconnell-urging-judges-retire-ahead-2020-election/5060303002
 * https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31677614/mitch-mcconnell-old-republican-judges-retire
 * https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/17/mitch-mcconnell-is-running-scared
 * https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/panicked-mitch-mcconnell-begging-federal-judges-to-retire-before-election-as-trumps-2020-prospects-dim
 * https://www.thedailybeast.com/mcconnell-encourages-veteran-federal-judges-to-vacate-seats-nyt-reports
 * X1\ (talk) 09:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * This article is a list. None of the other "List of federal judges appointed by..." articles have commentary of this sort. If this merits inclusion on Wikipedia, it would be in the Donald Trump judicial appointment controversies article. Also, I seriously doubt that Mitch McConnell is the first person to do this. Just because the media is reporting on it now doesn't mean it's a new phenomenon. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 15:48, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This article - like all similar articles for preceding presidents - is a list. Period. Birtig (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Cory Wilson
So now that he's been nominated for an appeals court position, what is the official status of his district court nomination? It seems confusing to be a nominee for two different posts at the same time...Marquardtika (talk) 19:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I imagine we can consider his district-level nomination to be canceled  Nevermore27  (talk) 18:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Technically the only nomination pending before the Senate right now is his district court nomination. Once an actual notice of withdraw about said district court nomination is transmitted to the Senate, then it can be removed, imo. Snickers2686 (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point  Nevermore27  (talk) 02:44, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Pictures
There are a number of cases where I've found pictures of judicial nominees. But I don't know how to insert them and don't feel comfortable doing so. Is there a way I could turn in the pictures to wikipedia and let its managers place them in the articles?
 * You can use Files for upload for uploading images of the judges/nominees. Once uploaded, they can be placed in the individual articles of the judges, and I can help with that part. My only request is that you make sure the images are properly licensed for use on Wikipedia. Thanks! --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 18:59, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Formatting change
Okay, an administrator did a complete formatting change of the list article...Why? I mean what was wrong with the prior format? For consistency's sake, shouldn't it be changed back? Snickers2686 (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I think the overview is not needed here this is a list nothing more. And the Supreme Court info should go too, that info is on the Judges nomination pages.Gunter79 (talk) 19:39, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Background info
A set of very well-sourced background information (e.g., demographic data) on Trump's appointees, which I recently added to the article under an "Overview" section, was recently deleted by a user who says that "This article is supposed to be lists, not commentary." But that makes little sense to me, since many list articles contain introductory or background material that helps to summarize, or place into context, the material that follows. I could add this information to the general article on presidency of Donald Trump &mdash; or create a new article on Federal judicial appointments of Donald Trump &mdash; but it seems silly to me to omit the information here, where it could be helpful to readers, or to atomize content (and create yet another Trump-related article). I invite others' opinions. Neutralitytalk 22:52, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be better served to be in the "Judicial appointments" section of the Presidency of Donald Trump article? Snickers2686 (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
 * My view is that it would make sense to have a Federal judicial appointments of Donald Trump article for facts and analysis of the type you suggest. You could then have a 'See also' link to the new article. Regards Birtig (talk) 19:08, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I've done that. Neutralitytalk 16:12, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

When a judge has "began service"
et al: I would like to reach a consensus on the issue of when a judge is considered to have "began service". It has come to my attention that this page is inconsistent with many pages (such as the judge's own page and for the Supreme Court, list of justices). The issue is whether a judge is considered to have "began service" after they receive their commission, or when they are sworn in. It appears that at the moment, this page uses the commission date from the Federal Judicial Center, as JocularJellyfish pointed out to me. However, this is rather strange to me as judges are unable to take office until they take their judicial oath. The Supreme Court website makes it clear:

The date a Member of the Court took his/her Judicial oath (the Judiciary Act provided “That the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judges, before they proceed to execute the duties of their respective offices, shall take the following oath . . . ”) is here used as the date of the beginning of his/her service, for until that oath is taken he/she is not vested with the prerogatives of the office. (https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members_text.aspx)

This inconsistency is also the case with Justice Gorsuch, who according to the FJC received his commission on April 8, 2017 but took his oath on April 10. His page lists April 10 as when he took office, along with the list of justices and associated pages.

Sdrqaz (talk) 20:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)


 * From what I can tell the list shows their active start date as when they received their commission and in their infobox, it shows their term starting once they take the judicial oath. As far I as I know the list has always gone by commission date. Per the Court itself: The date a Member of the Court took his/her Judicial oath (the Judiciary Act provided “That the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judges, before they proceed to execute the duties of their respective offices, shall take the following oath . . . ”) is here used as the date of the beginning of his/her service, for until that oath is taken he/she is not vested with the prerogatives of the office.Snickers2686 (talk) 22:38, 27 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I am aware of the quote from the Court (I quoted it in my initial query as well). My question is whether this inconsistency should exist. A judge with a commission but without having sworn their judicial oath is effectively unable to carry out any of their duties and should not be viewed as having "began service" by any measure.


 * Sdrqaz (talk) 01:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)


 * We have used commission dates for all Article III judges for years now, because it is next to impossible to know the dates each district and circuit judge was sworn in, but their commission dates are readily accessible. I think we should stick to using them for all judges, for consistency's sake. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 03:09, 28 October 2020 (UTC)


 * That seems like fair reasoning. However, for sake of accuracy, I would propose changing the began service and began active service headers to date of commission instead, or add a note that this is the date being used. I would like to hear your thoughts on this too


 * Sdrqaz (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Some Justices take the constitutional and judicial oaths at the same time, as is evident on the Court website. I still think it makes sense to, in regards to this list, to include the commission date as the start date and note in the article when they start via the taking of the judicial oath, otherwise the commission date means nothing and it makes for a lot of adjustments in federal judge articles/lists unless we make an exception for SCOTUS justices only, if that's the case, then it needs to be taken to the Project page. Snickers2686 (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2020 (UTC)


 * That seems like a fair proposal; I'll add a note to accompany the start date. It is unfortunately a very imperfect system that involves a legal fiction (haha sorry), but I don't think it is feasible to source all the dates of lower court judges' oath dates (like you said).
 * Sdrqaz (talk) 23:30, 29 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The whole source of this conflict is because overzealous editors keep changing the start dates on the individual Supreme Court Justices' page. They're also the editors who change the "appointer" parameter to "nominator" (even though as we have previously discussed, the appointer is far more important than the nominator). At this point I think it's just worth giving up and leaving this page completely unchanged, without any explanation necessary. All of the circuit and district judges have on their individual pages specific information about when they received their commissions (and thus when they began service). There's no need to adjust this page. – JocularJellyfish TalkContribs 23:14, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I agree with the point that you're making. The start dates on the individual justice's page are the dates they finished swearing their judicial and constitutional oaths. This is the case for Justice Gorsuch (who received his commission on April 8, 2017 but swore his oaths on April 10) and for Justice Barrett (who received her commission on October 26 but finished swearing her oaths on October 27).


 * I take issue with your saying "when they received their commissions (and thus when they began service)"; as Snickers2686 and I have pointed out (using the same quote from the Supreme Court's website), "until that oath is taken he/she is not vested with the prerogatives of the office". It therefore follows that a judge only begins service when they have finished swearing their oaths. This interpretation is underpinned by . As I understand it, the only reason we are using the date of commission on this page is due to convenience. It is not because that it is actually the date they begin service.


 * Moreover, I think it would be a disservice to users to leave the page "completely unchanged, without any explanation necessary". To leave the page without any explanation just engenders "overzealous editors" to change it to date of oath and leaves the regular reader with confusion over which date is correct.


 * Sdrqaz (talk) 02:54, 1 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Sorry I'm late to the party. It seems to me that if we're actually listing commission dates and are going to continue to do so, then it is bizarre to label the column as something else (which in many cases would actually be a different date) and then try to smooth over the discrepancy with a footnote (I agree that this kind of inconsistency invites the "overzealous" attempts to correct the information). I am in favor of continuing to use commission dates for the reasons stated, but I think the column should therefore be relabeled "Commission date" (nicely parallel with "Nomination date" and "Confirmation date") and some version of the note which has been added can remain (if you like). I would favor the relabeling of that column not only throughout this article, but also in all similar articles, and if the lack of parallelism with "Ended active service" bothers anyone, we can change that to "Termination date." (Relatedly, I deeply dislike the assumption in the way that these columns are structured that all judges who end active service move on to senior service, as well as the fact that we put entries like "elevated" and "incumbent" in a column labeled "Ended senior status." That column and its entries should be reconceived.) LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 09:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note that there are around 40 other articles in this series that would also need to be changed for consistency. BD2412  T 18:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Understood. And I think they should be. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 18:37, 1 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for getting back to me. I thought that the addition of a footnote would be less disruptive to the page, but will be happy to support your proposal to change the starting date to "commission date". When you say "in all similar articles", you are referring to all lists of judges appointed by President X, right? I'm afraid I don't have much opinion on the matter of changing "ended active service" to "termination date". How do you think that the column "ended senior status" should be restructured?
 * Sdrqaz (talk) 23:34, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the lists of judges appointed by President X were the articles I had in mind (but if there are other similar articles, I'm not necessarily opposed to changing those as well). I think the "ended senior status" column is trying to do too much work. In theory, it's a column which is usually filled by the date on which a judge ends their senior service, but it also does other things. For example, in this article, Barrett's entry in the Courts of appeals section says "elevated" in that column, giving an explanation for why she ended her active service (i.e., the previous column). This makes no sense in terms of how the column is actually constructed: "elevated" has nothing to do with Barrett's "senior status" because she never took senior status; she won't even be eligible until 2037! So the column is trying to do multiple things. Notations explaining why a judge transitioned out of active service should be in their own column or should not be included in these tables. And if we really feel the need to include senior service in these tables, I think we could do it more simply in a column labeled "senior service" with entries that either give a range of years (like the tables in the articles on the individual circuits, which have a column for senior service with entries like "2006–2013") or with just the word "incumbent." If the point of including senior service in the tables on articles about the judicial appointments of individual presidents is to be able to see easily which of those judges might still be serving as judges in regular or senior service then "incumbent" should be totally adequate to the purpose; obviously one's senior service begins when one's regular service ends (a date which would be given in the previous column, "Termination date"), and once judges are retired from even senior service, the particular dates of that service probably do not matter in the context of these articles. If we want a column explaining how/why judges terminated their regular/senior service, I would call it something like "Reason for termination of active (and senior) service" and then have entries like "Took senior status (died)" to indicate that active service was ended by taking senior status and senior status was ended by death. Or else I think we need two columns. I've always thought the tables that simply give "death" as the "Reason for termination" were odd in the cases of judges who had senior service; such a label makes no distinction between those who die in active service and those who die after decades of senior service. Anyway, a bit rambly, but hopefully it serves to clarify my thinking on these questions. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * that seems to have been very well-thought out and I would be happy to endorse the reforms that you have proposed. It may be a good idea for you to create a mock-up of what the table would look like, so an RfC or other appropriate process can take place. Sdrqaz (talk) 02:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think I've ever created an RfC, so I might let you do that, but I have put together a mock-up using some Bush 43, Clinton, and Reagan appointees to illustrate what I am proposing. I've changed some of the column labels, rewritten the note attached to "Commission date", and added a column for "Reason for termination". I tried to find a collection of judges that would illustrate the range of possibilities: Fisher and Traxler took senior status and are still doing it; Pickering had a recess appointment and left the bench because his appointment expired; Pryor and Wardlaw are still in active service; Van Antwerpen took senior status and later died so his senior service has ended (it doesn't seem like these kinds of tables need to explain how/why judges' senior service ended); Kelly died while in active service; Sotomayor was elevated to the Supreme Court; Starr resigned to take another job; and Kozinski retired outright (bypassing senior status). Here's the sample:




 * Let me know what you think. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 17:31, 4 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I'll try my best to create an RfC; my first creation was criticised as being "malformed" by an administrator! Before I do, though, how can we be sure that a judge retired instead of resigned? What if there's not enough information on that judge's page for us to infer what their intentions were? Sdrqaz (talk) 03:18, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds great. Good question: the essential difference is whether they had served long enough to retire under the Rule of 80 (so you can usually figure out the right answer without looking anywhere); Starr hadn't. FJC actually makes the distinction already, so you can see they say Starr's service terminated "due to resignation" and Kozinski's terminated "due to retirement" . LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 16:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. That sounds like a consistent standard that can be applied. I'll begin work on an RfC later today. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with commission date vs started active service, but I think termination is the wrong term, here is my table. 148.77.10.25 (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)


 * (1) I understand that "termination" sounds odd, but it is literally the correct term. It is the term that FJC uses for all of these judges: "service terminated due to . . ." We should follow the terminology of our sources. (2) Impeachment does not terminate someone's service; Porteous was impeached and then convicted; it was his conviction on the charges for which he was impeached that removed him from office and terminated his service. (FJC says "service terminated . . . due to impeachment and conviction.") (3) I am absolutely opposed to combining into a single column both information about a judge's senior service and reasons for why that judge did not take senior status (that's what we're doing now and it's bad for the reasons I've already given), no matter what the column is called or what footnote we attach to it. It's confusing and looks ridiculous. Tables should be easy to read which mean columns need to serve a single clear purpose. I would rather remove all of that information (the last two columns in my sample; just the last one in yours) than keep it combined in the kind of way that you suggest. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That isn't actually true FJC does not use terminated for assuming senior status, because they are still judges. 69.116.73.107 (talk) 17:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)