There are currently 12 vacancies on the Texas federal bench. Ten are in district courts and two are on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
And those vacancies have been serious enough for court administrators to declare a judicial emergency. University of Houston Political Science Professor Brandon Rottinghaus blames partisan politics.
“The length of delays, the number of delays, has gotten higher from the Clinton administration,” says Rottinghaus. “It was exacerbated during the Bush administration and now it has exploded during the Obama administration.”
So if there’s not enough judges, what happens to the cases on the docket?
Rottinghaus says people trying to settle legal disputes can only sit and wait, and that creates even more problems.
“You may have businesses that have to re-prioritize in the short term,” adds Rottinghaus. “You have groups in the long-term that aren’t able to plan ahead because they don’t know the resolution of certain kinds of legal outcomes. You also have the judicial system itself which has to accommodate for a set of missing judges.”
As for when the full Senate will vote on the nominees, Rottinghaus says it appears many lawmakers are waiting to see who wins the presidential election in November.