Noah Feldman, Columnist

How Trump Can Reshape the Courts

There are lots of judicial vacancies beyond the Supreme Court.

November 17, 2016 at 9:46 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

One of many open seats.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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The Republican Senate has blocked or delayed many of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees; his Supreme Court pick of Judge Merrick Garland is just the most visible. Now President-elect Donald Trump will be able to capitalize by filling those slots. And because of the Senate Democrats’ 2013 decision to exercise the “nuclear option” and eliminate the filibuster for all judicial nominees except for the Supreme Court, they won’t be able to filibuster Trump’s candidates.

Beyond the Supreme Court, where everything turns on the longevity and health of the three justices age 78 and older, what effect will Trump’s judges have on the state of the law in the U.S.? Will the Republicans’ delaying tactics prove to have been as useful in the lower courts as their blocking of Garland to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat?