Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to schedule a confirmation vote on the four district court nominees who cleared the Judiciary Committee without opposition nearly two weeks ago: Jill Parrish for the District of Utah, and Alfred Bennett, George Hanks, and Jose Rolando Olvera for the Southern District of Texas.
Texas in particular is in desperate need of more federal judges. The Lone Star State has a shocking 11 judicial seats currently vacant (with a twelfth one opening this spring). In fact, the eleventh vacancy opened just today. This opening came as no surprise: Judge Richard Schell of the Eastern District announced back in January of 2014 that he would be taking senior status. Texas Sens. Cornyn and Cruz could have recommended an acceptable nominee to the White House in time for that person to have been fully vetted, nominated, and confirmed last year. Unfortunately, that did not happen; no nomination has been made yet.
Of those eleven vacancies, seven have been designated judicial emergencies. That's nearly one third of all the judicial emergencies nationwide. Confirming the three Texas nominees who have been waiting for Senator McConnell to schedule a floor vote would help alleviate this problem.
All three would serve in the Southern District of Texas, which will still have an additional two vacancies remaining even after these nominees are confirmed. McConnell's delay is adding unnecessarily to the strain on the area's federal court system.
Just how bad is that strain? The Judicial Conference of the United States has asked Congress to create an additional two judgeships in the Southern District of Texas. In other words, even if all three pending nominees were confirmed today, and the other two vacancies were magically filled tomorrow (even though they don't have nominees), the crushing caseload burden on the Southern District is so bad that at least another two judges would be needed to ensure that the people of Texas have access to a fair and efficient federal court system.
A confirmation vote on the Texas (and Utah) nominees is long overdue.