In a recent entry, I linked to a New York Times article discussing the election and the effect it will have on the courts. The article focused not on the Supreme Court (which hears about 75 cases per year), but rather the federal appeals courts (deciding about 60,000 cases per year).
Here is a link to another such article about the election and the federal appeals courts published in the American Prospect by Alexander Wohl, an adjunct professor at American University. He observes:
Of the 13 circuit courts, two, the 2nd and 3rd Circuits, are evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees, three, the 1st, 4th, and 11th have a Republican majority of one or two judges, and of the others, Democrats have a solid majority on just one, the 9th Circuit, while Republicans control the rest.
The article also sheds light on the difference between how Democrat and Republican-appointed judges rule in environmental cases:
For example, according to a study of the period from 1970 to 1994 by George Washington University law professor Richard J. Pierce, Republican-appointed judges considering environmental cases voted to deny standing (access to the court) to plaintiffs challenging decisions of the Environmental Protection Agency 79.2 percent of the time. In contrast, during that same period Democratic-appointed judges voted to deny standing just 18.2 percent of the time in those challenges.
Bookmark/share a post