'Tough on crime' republicans blocked over a dozen D.C. judges at the end of Biden's term

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Last edited Tue Aug 12, 2025, 01:18 PM - Edit history (2)

December 18th 2024

WASHINGTON (7News) — In the span of just 10 minutes, the D.C. court system watched what will likely be its last opportunity of the year to add much-needed judges to their bench slip away on the Senate floor Wednesday, meaning potentially several more months of severely backlogged criminal and civil proceedings.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., tried calling a vote for 10 judicial nominees for the D.C. court system Wednesday, but Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., blocked the motion, without giving an explanation.



https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDvSZGGSsL9/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=21435e8d-e2aa-4413-887c-84829da7f805


D.C. is unique in how judges for local criminal and civil matters are selected.

The president must name a nominee, the Senate has to confirm that nominee in a committee and on the full floor, and the confirmed judge is sent back to the president for sign-off before being sworn in.

The D.C. court system currently has 11 judge vacancies - nine in the superior court and two in the appeals court. If the ten judicial nominees were to be confirmed, it would have nearly filled the bench and left only one vacant seat.

"The result of inaction in blocking these judges is just to back up the entire court system of the District of Columbia -- criminal cases, civil cases. It makes no sense," Van Hollen said. "And if someone was looking on on the Senate right now, they would see this as one of the many examples of complete dysfunction because of the kind of obstruction based on who knows what rationale."

An aide for the Senate committee responsible for advancing judicial nominees to the full floor previously told 7News that most nominees for D.C. Courts are not controversial and confirmed by voice vote because they have been recommended and nominated by an independent local commission.

In fact, Van Hollen said two of the ten nominees that were blocked from receiving a vote Wednesday were nominated by then-President Donald Trump.

https://wjla.com/news/local/dc-judge-nominees-confirmation-blocked-senator-chris-van-hollen-roger-marshall-superior-court-system-vacancies-empty-seats-trials-delays-civil-cases-criminal-dmv


https://jnc.dc.gov/page/current-vacancies-and-nominations


...moreover, it was reported at the beginning of the year that:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a notice posted last week that D.C. and surrounding areas would receive $20 million less this year from its urban security fund, reducing the funding to $25.2 million and amounting to a 44% year-on-year cut.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said on Friday it cut funds to D.C. and other cities to align with the “current threat landscape.”

FEMA also cut security money for Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Jersey City and San Francisco, but the reduction in D.C. was the largest for any urban area that received funding from the program last fiscal year.

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2025-08-08/dc-facing-20-million-security-funding-cut-despite-trump-complaints-of-us-capital-crime

D.C. court nominees languish as Senate prioritizes federal judges

D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Milton C. Lee called on the Senate to act, saying high caseloads are forcing judges to triage.

The Senate confirmed more than a dozen nominees to the federal judiciary since Election Day. But... that promise has so far not extended to the 10 people up for judgeships on the backlogged local D.C. courts, many of whom have been awaiting confirmation since July.

If the Senate cannot confirm the D.C. picks before it recesses on Dec. 20, then their nominations will be returned to the commission that selected them, thus restarting the lengthy, multistep nominating process as additional D.C. judges decide whether to retire in the new year. The situation has escalated long-simmering tensions between the District’s courts and Congress, where D.C. judgeships have for years been held up by lawmakers who wield discretion over local matters in the nation’s capital.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/12/09/dc-judgeships-senate-vote/

The Ludicrous System That Makes It So Hard to Fight Crime in DC
The feds blame local D.C. for crime, but the city can point the finger right back. Is this any way to run a capital?

The issue, for the locals, isn’t abstract crime-fighting theory. It’s raw numbers: A staggering 20 percent of the judgeships in D.C. Superior Court have been vacant for months thanks to a Senate confirmation process that has remained stuck even as a bipartisan cadre of legislators have taken turns scolding the capital for its crime stats.

The judicial positions in question are not fancy federal judgeships where confirmations are apt to get bogged down in constitutional philosophy. Rather, they’re the jurists who try carjackings or rapes or DUIs, essential parts of the criminal-justice system that in an actual state would be selected by the locals with no need for an OK from Congress.

“Fewer judges mean fewer courtrooms where we can try cases,” says U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves. “With respect to criminal cases, we are seeing the greatest harm in the courtrooms that hear homicide cases where trial dates are being set in late 2025 and early 2026, in part because of judicial vacancies. The prosecution is almost always prejudiced by such years-long delays.”

“Because the Senate is so broken, there are no judges that can get confirmed through unanimous consent,” says Christina Henderson, an at-large independent member of the D.C. Council and herself a former Democratic Senate staffer. “No one is talking about it and nobody cares because D.C. doesn’t have any Senators.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/24/congress-dc-crime-00159702