March/April 2018 Issue

These Charts Show How White, Male, and Conservative Trump’s Judicial Nominees Have Been

The administration has installed a record-breaking number of judges, reshaping the courts for decades.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch following an April swearing-in ceremony.Carolyn Kaster/AP

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Senate Republicans spent the end of Barack Obama’s term running out the clock on his picks for federal judges. (Remember Merrick Garland?) So when Donald Trump took office, he faced a nearly unprecedented number of vacant judgeships—and an opportunity to roll back gains in diversity and remake the federal courts for decades.

Trump has taken full advantage of the opportunity. In the first year of his presidency, he nominated 69 federal judges, more than any president since Reagan. A record-breaking 12 were appeals court judges. Since the start of the new year, Trump has nominated nearly two dozen more judges.

In total, 71 percent of Trump’s nominees have been white men—a fact that has not slipped past Democratic senators and liberal watchdog groups. “It’s long past time that the judiciary starts looking like the America it represents,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a recent speech on the Senate floor. “After years of improvement, the Trump administration—like in so many other areas—is taking a giant step backward, this time, when it comes to the diversity of their nominations.”

Federal judges serve for life and are rarely impeached. The numbers Mother Jones compiled show a president who is working hard to cement a judiciary, and a legacy, that will last long beyond his term.

 

 

 

 

Sources: American Bar Association, American Bridge, Alliance for Justice, Federal Judicial Center, US Courts, US Senate, and Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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