Graham seeking appellate seats to fill

Bloomberg Law reports Graham Asks Older Appellate Judges to Make Room for Younger Ones

• Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham called on older appeals court judges to step aside and make room for younger nominees, applying new pressure to get more conservatives into the confirmation pipeline in the final months of President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
• “If you’re a circuit judge in your mid-60s, late-60s, you can take senior status, now would be a good time to do that if you want to make sure the judiciary is right-of-center, this is a good time to do it,” Graham, R-S.C, said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday.
• Trump has worked to reshape the federal judiciary with conservatives. With the help of a friendly Republican-led Senate, he’s been able to confirm 192 federal district and appellate judges and two Supreme Court justices.
• That work has left him now with little work to do to fill appellate seats. Only two nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Fifth Circuit are currently being vetted in the Senate.