Trump’s judicial appointment pace is unlikely to match his first-term record
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Senate Republicans took a judicial-confirmation victory lap before leaving town for Independence Day.
参议院共和党人在离开城镇参加独立日之前绕了一圈司法确认胜利。
They proclaimed that “the total number of U.S. circuit and district judges confirmed this Congress [is] 45 …
他们宣称“确认本届国会的美国巡回法官和地区法官总数为 45 人……
well ahead of the pace of confirmations …
远远领先于确认的速度……
compared to this point during the first Trump administration, when only 40 [41 actually] had been confirmed.” They vowed to “continue confirming President Trump’s …
相比之下，特朗普第一届政府期间只有 40 [实际上是 41] 得到确认。”他们发誓要“继续确认特朗普总统的......
judicial nominees at a rapid pace …
司法提名的速度很快……
” And they have—eight confirmations in July.
” 他们在 7 月份有八次确认。
Trump appointed a near-record 231 circuit, district, and Court of International Trade judges in his first term.
特朗普在第一个任期内任命了 231 名巡回法院、地区法院和国际贸易法院法官，数量接近创纪录。
Those judges and the 53 second-term appointees occupy almost 1 in every 3 life-tenured federal judgeships.
这些法官和 53 名第二任期任命的法官几乎占据了每 3 个终身终身联邦法官职位中的 1 个。
They have—in the aggregate—strongly supported the administration’s policy goals at the district and court of appeals levels.
总的来说，他们强烈支持政府在地区和上诉法院层面的政策目标。
Trump and the Senate are of course eager to add more appointees.
特朗普和参议院当然渴望增加更多的任命人选。
The 119th Senate’s full two-year confirmations might top the 83 in the first Trump administration (115th Senate).
第 119 届参议院的完整两年确认人数可能超过特朗普第一届政府（第 115 届参议院）的 83 名。
But there is a huge gap both in pending nominations waiting for confirmation and vacancies waiting for nominees—and little reason to expect either gap to close.
但等待确认的提名和等待提名的空缺都存在巨大差距，而且没有理由期望这两个差距会缩小。
Thus, unlike Trump 1.0’s third and fourth years, Trump 2.0’s will have a paucity of vacancies and thus nominees.
因此，与特朗普1.0的第三年和第四年不同，特朗普2.0的职位空缺和提名人都很少。
Matching Trump’s 231 first-term appointments by the end of 2028 would require adding 178 appointments to the 53 achieved so far—a long shot.
到 2028 年底，要与特朗普第一任期的 231 项任命相匹配，需要在迄今已实现的 53 项任命的基础上再增加 178 项——可能性不大。
And, as explained below, he is unlikely to achieve anything close to record numbers for eight years.
而且，正如下面所解释的，他不太可能在八年内取得接近创纪录的数字。
Figure 1 shows that by July 31, 2018, the Senate confirmed 44 Trump nominees (three up from the end of June), and a final two-year count of 83.
图 1 显示，截至 2018 年 7 月 31 日，参议院确认了 44 名特朗普提名人（比 6 月底增加了 3 名），最终两年提名人数为 83 名。
That is almost twice the figure at mid-year, a proportional increase greater than that for any other president shown in Figure 1, even if Trump’s actual numbers are lower than all but Obama’s.
这几乎是年中数字的两倍，增幅高于图 1 中显示的任何其他总统，尽管特朗普的实际数字低于除奥巴马以外的所有总统。
Figure 2 again shows the 53 confirmations as of July 31, 2026, and the 44 eight years earlier, but it also shows that through July 2026, Trump 2.0 had submitted only 60 nominees.
图2再次显示了截至2026年7月31日的53名提名人和八年前的44名提名人，但它也显示截至2026年7月，特朗普2.0仅提交了60名提名人。
At the same date in 2018, Trump had submitted over twice as many—137.
2018 年同一天，特朗普提交的申请数量是其两倍多——137 份。
Ninety-two nominees were pending before the Senate as grist for the confirmation mill in the rest of 2018 through the end of 2020.
参议院有 92 名提名人等待 2018 年剩余时间至 2020 年底的确认。
By contrast, at the end of July 2026, only 6 nominations were awaiting Senate action.
相比之下，截至 2026 年 7 月底，只有 6 项提名等待参议院采取行动。
But couldn’t Trump flood the Senate with nominees during the limited time that the Senate is in session in 2026 and then through 2028?
但特朗普难道不能在 2026 年和 2028 年参议院开会的有限时间内向参议院提名大量候选人吗？
The starting point for that project is vacancies, and, again, the Trump 2.0 landscape is much more barren than in Trump 1.0’s first two years.
该项目的出发点是职位空缺，而特朗普 2.0 的前景比特朗普 1.0 的前两年要贫瘠得多。
The district and appellate courts have 30 vacancies without nominees (vacancies in place and announced future vacancies).
地区法院和上诉法院有 30 个没有提名的空缺（现有空缺和已宣布的未来空缺）。
Compare that to the 92 vacancies waiting for nominees in July 2018.
与 2018 年 7 月等待提名的 92 个空缺职位相比。
Trump 2.0 inherited far fewer vacancies (50) than did Trump 1.0 (119).
特朗普 2.0 继承的职位空缺（50 个）远少于特朗普 1.0（119 个）。
Trump 1.0 reaped the fruits of Senate Republicans’ near freeze on confirmations in Obama’s final two years.
特朗普1.0收获了奥巴马最后两年参议院共和党人几乎冻结确认提名的成果。
But judges in Trump’s first term created many more additional vacancies for him than judges have created so far in his second term.
但特朗普第一任期内的法官为他创造的空缺比他第二任期迄今为止所创造的空缺要多得多。
From Election Day 2016 through July 2018, 97 judges either announced they would leave active status at some future date or simply left without an earlier announcement.
从 2016 年选举日到 2018 年 7 月，97 名法官要么宣布他们将在未来某个日期退出活跃状态，要么干脆在没有提前宣布的情况下离开。
In the same period (2024-2026), the number is 42.
同期（2024-2026年），这一数字为42。
(The numbers don’t reflect vacancies that judges announced before Election Day but created after.
（这些数字并不反映法官在选举日之前宣布但在选举日之后创建的空缺职位。
The focus is on judges’ retirement decisions once they know who could nominate their successors.)
重点是法官在知道谁可以提名继任者后的退休决定。）
Indeed, Figure 3 shows, for the roughly 20 months starting on Election Day, that the second Trump administration has seen the lowest number of vacancy creations of the five most recent administrations.
事实上，图 3 显示，从选举日开始的大约 20 个月里，特朗普第二届政府的职位空缺数量是最近五届政府中最少的。
(Vacancy archives before then do not allow the calculation.)
（在此之前的空缺档案不允许计算。）
Plenty of judges are now eligible to retire on salary (which is how almost all vacancies get created), but few of them are likely to do so.
现在很多法官都有资格带薪退休（这几乎是所有空缺职位的产生方式），但很少有人愿意这样做。
Forty-six Republican appointees are now eligible (22 appellate, 24 district), but 37 of them have been eligible since Biden was inaugurated.
目前有 46 名共和党任命者符合资格（22 名上诉议员，24 名选区议员），但其中 37 人自拜登就职以来一直符合资格。
They are unlikely to retire in droves over the next six months or beyond.
他们不太可能在未来六个月或更长时间内大批退休。
(One-hundred and two Democratic appointees are eligible; they are even less likely to provide Trump with appointment opportunities, especially as he approaches lame-duck status.)
（一百零二名民主党任命者符合资格；他们更不可能为特朗普提供任命机会，尤其是当他接近跛脚鸭地位时。）
Retirement-eligible judges no doubt leave—or decline to leave—active status for any number of reasons.
毫无疑问，符合退休资格的法官会出于多种原因离开或拒绝离开活跃状态。
Multi-variate analysis has suggested an increase in judges who time their retirements to avoid replacement by any president not of the same party as their appointer (which Figure 3 illustrates).
多变量分析表明，越来越多的法官会安排退休时间，以避免被任何与任命者非同一党派的总统取代（如图 3 所示）。
Others probably want to avoid some of the restrictions that senior status impose on their participation in their court: senior circuit judges’ limited role in en banc proceedings, for example, and restrictions on case assignments to district judges.
其他人可能希望避免高级地位对其参与法院施加的一些限制：例如，高级巡回法官在全席诉讼中的作用有限，以及对地区法官分配案件的限制。
Others, of course, take senior status because of the continued economic benefits and reduced caseload.
当然，其他人则因为持续的经济利益和案件量的减少而获得高级地位。
The sharp drop-off in the first 20 months of Trump’s second term—42 judges versus from 63 to 101 in the same time frame for other presidents—prompts speculation about another factor (as noted in my earlier articles ).
特朗普第二个任期的前 20 个月里，法官人数急剧下降——法官人数从 63 人减少到 101 人，而同期其他总统的人数则从 63 人减少到 101 人——引发了人们对另一个因素的猜测（正如我之前的文章所述）。
Trump in his second term has upped his vitriolic attacks on judges whose decisions displeased him compared to his first term behavior.
特朗普在第二任期内加大了对法官的尖刻攻击力度，与他第一任期的行为相比，法官的决定令他不满。
In August 2025, a district judge (a Trump appointee, in fact) described a “concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it [as] both unprecedented and unfortunate” (listing examples of the aspersions tossed out by Trump and his underlings).
2025 年 8 月，一名地区法官（事实上是特朗普任命的人）描述了“行政部门一致努力抹黑和指责做出反对裁决的个别法官，这是前所未有的，也是不幸的”（列举了特朗普及其下属所诽谤的例子）。
Some retirement-eligible judges might balance leaving full-time service and possibly avoiding such attacks (and the physical violence they spawn) against the alternative of creating vacancies for such an administration to fill.
一些符合退休资格的法官可能会在离开全职服务并可能避免此类袭击（以及由此产生的身体暴力）与为此类政府创造空缺以填补空缺之间进行权衡。
This is, to repeat, only speculation, absent hard data, but certainly plausible.
重申一下，这只是猜测，没有确凿的数据，但肯定是合理的。
Given the paucity of vacancies, it is questionable whether Trump will end the first two years of his second term with more than the 83 confirmations he achieved by December 2018.
鉴于职位空缺较少，特朗普在第二任期的头两年结束时是否会以超过 2018 年 12 月获得的 83 名确认人选为疑问。
Granted, if the Senate confirmed all six pending nominees and filled all 30 vacancies currently without nominees, those 36 additional appointees would produce 89 two-year appointments.
诚然，如果参议院确认所有六名待定提名人并填补目前没有提名人的所有 30 个空缺，那么这 36 名额外任命的人将产生 89 个两年期任命。
But, of the 30 nominee-less vacancies (all but one in district courts), 15 are in states with one or two Democratic senators.
但是，在 30 个无需提名的空缺中（除了地区法院的 1 个之外），有 15 个位于拥有一到两名民主党参议员的州。
With Senate Judiciary chair Grassley’s commitment to the blue-slip process for district nominees, home-state senators—Democrats included—have a virtual veto power over nominations.
由于参议院司法委员会主席格拉斯利致力于地区提名人的蓝单程序，因此本州参议员（包括民主党人）对提名拥有实际上的否决权。
All but two of Trump’s district nominees have been to vacancies in states with two Republican senators (discounting the Court of International Trade nominee).
除两名特朗普选区提名人外，其他人都填补了拥有两名共和党参议员的州的职位空缺（不包括国际贸易法院提名人）。
Trump and his supporters revel in his comparatively high number of appointments for a first term president—231, basically tied with Biden for second place, behind Carter.
特朗普和他的支持者对他在第一任总统中获得的相对较多的任命感到兴奋——231 次，基本上与拜登并列第二，仅次于卡特。
As to appointments over eight years, President Reagan leads with 379 appointments, followed closely by Clinton’s 376.
就八年的任命而言，里根总统以 379 项任命领先，紧随其后的是克林顿，有 376 项任命。
Contrary to his incessant and not-always-accurate first-term boasts about number of appointments ( ”We are shattering every record!” ), Trump has said little in his second term, certainly not predicting shattered records.
与他在第一任期内不断吹嘘任命数量（“我们正在打破每一项记录！”）的说法并不总是准确相反，特朗普在第二任期内几乎没有说什么，当然也没有预测打破记录。
With 231 first-year appointments, and 53 so far in his second term, he will need 95 more to top Reagan.
第一年任命 231 人，第二任期迄今任命 53 人，他还需要 95 人才能超越里根。
If Republicans retain control of the Senate for 2027-28, we can assume a continuation of confirmations but at a pace dictated by the number of vacancies, with no reason to expect a surge in retirements.
如果共和党在 2027-28 年间保住参议院的控制权，我们可以假设继续进行确认，但确认速度取决于空缺数量，没有理由预期退休人数会激增。
If Democrats gain a Senate majority, expect a virtual shutdown of the Trump effort to transform the federal judiciary.
如果民主党获得参议院多数席位，预计特朗普改革联邦司法机构的努力实际上将停止。