Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

Judicial Nominees

Keep up with the latest action items to protect our federal courts.

Tell Your Senators to REJECT Extreme Judicial Nominees

Federal judicial nominations are lifetime appointments, and judges' decisions can impact reproductive rights for generations to come.

About Judicial Nominations

The judicial nomination process can be an intimidating topic, but it is vital to upholding reproductive freedom. Judges’ decisions can impact reproductive rights for generations because federal judicial nominations are lifetime appointments.

The federal court system is divided into three levels: the district courts on the lowest tier, followed by circuit courts, and the Supreme Court at the top tier. There are ​677​ authorized judgeships on the 94 district courts, 179 on the thirteen courts of appeals, and nine on the Supreme Court. Traditionally​, the nomination process begins with U.S. Senators making recommendations to the president. From there, the president makes the nomination. Once nominated, the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing to question the nominee, and then votes to move the nominee to the Senate floor for debate and confirmation. 

However, over the last four years, the current administration has broken 213 years of process and precedent. This administration has appointed over 200 judges—a record number of appointments. The Senate lowered the hearing time limit from 15 hours to two, allowing them to complete the process seven times faster than ever before. The Senate is also following the Trump administration's lead by prioritizing recommendations from conservative think tanks rather than senators, and selecting young conservative judges with little to no bench experience to lifetime appointments. 

On top of all of this, we are living through a global pandemic. Amid the chaos of COVID-19, we’ve seen a complete breakdown of communication between federal and state governments. Instead of prioritizing the public health crisis, the Senate is actively holding hearings to confirm anti-health judges for vacancies that won’t be open for months. 

Our Senators have a say in who gets appointed. They have the ability to vote in line with the values of their constituents—for judges who will uphold precedent on reproductive freedom and set the tone for accessible health care  at a time when it is most needed. 

The power that federal judges hold has implications for generations to come. That is why it is imperative that we elect champions who stand up for our values, our safety, and our health. Planned Parenthood is here with you, closely monitoring these vacancies, opposing anti-health judges, and here to defend the movement we are creating together.

Take action now: tell your Senators to REJECT President Trump's extreme judicial nominees.

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of required cookies when utilizing our site; this includes necessary cookies that help our site to function (such as remembering your cookie preference settings). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.