President-elect Donald Trump will have the chance to choose three, if not four, judges to the federal district court in Houston when he assumes office for the second time in January.
Judge Lee Rosenthal of the U.S. District Court resigned from active duty on Sunday, leaving a position open for Trump to replace. Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court likewise intends to assume senior status on January 2.
Earlier this summer, both Rosenthal and Hanen declared their plans to assume senior status, suggesting that they probably did not time their declarations to align with the outcome of this year’s presidential election. However, because judges are appointed for life, their actions allow Trump and his supporters to propose two additional judges who, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, will sit on the federal bench in Houston for decades to come.
Trump has pledged to select conservative justices with a strong track record, such as current Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and retired Justice Antonin Scalia. The originalist interpretations of the Constitution by the first two are well-known.
There will be four district court openings in the Southern District of Texas after Hanen becomes a senior. Since 2023, when Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston and Judge Micaela Alvarez of McAllen were appointed senior judges, there have been two.Although Alvarez is based in McAllen, she took over for Judge David Hittner, who was based in Houston, when he became a senior judge in 2004. The chief judge of the district may choose to appoint her replacement to Houston.
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Judges over 65 who have served on the federal bench for at least 15 years are eligible for senior status. Senior judges usually take on fewer cases, and presidents appoint new judges to replace them.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, stated that although President Joe Biden may still propose candidates to replace Hughes and Alvarez, Senate Democrats may not have enough time to confirm them before Republicans seize control of the chamber on January 3. Additionally, it doesn’t seem like Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, senators from Texas, have approved any candidates for the two seats.
Before the president’s district court nominee can be confirmed, senators are required to send so-called “blue slips” confirming their support for the nominee. Through a spokeswoman, Cornyn declined to comment for this article.
With the goal of matching or even surpassing the 234 candidates confirmed by the GOP under Trump, Senate Democrats are laser-focused on approving the dozen nominees already in the pipeline. Given that many of the district and appellate court judges chosen by past Republican presidents will be eligible to assume senior status either next year or the year after, Tobias said Trump is well-positioned to build on that accomplishment.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, Trump appointed more women than George W. Bush during his first term but fewer non-white jurists than his predecessor, Barack Obama. Charles Eskridge, 61, and Drew Tipton, 57, are two Trump-appointed judges who are now serving on the federal court in Houston. They’re both white dudes.
From whether a business violated copyright, whether an employer discriminated against workers, whether police officers make constitutionally permissible arrests, and whether citizens have been denied the right to vote, federal district and appellate courts make all of these decisions. They also regularly make decisions on important matters including immigration, LGBTQ rights, and access to abortion.
According to Joshua Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, district court judges are the first line of defense when almost every aspect of society appears in court.
Together with the Northern, Western, and Eastern districts, Texas has four federal district courts, including the Houston-based Texas Southern District. Houston, Galveston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen, and Laredo are among its seven divisions and federal courts.
Rosenthal, who turned 72 on Saturday, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and has served as a federal judge in Houston ever since. Her 2017 decisions that declared Harris County’s bail policies unlawful and unjust to people accused of minor offenses, as well as Pasadena’s deliberate dilution of the voting power of its Latino citizens, are arguably her most well-known decisions. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, substantially sustained both decisions.
President George W. Bush appointed Hanen to the bench in 2002, and he began his career as a federal judge in Brownsville. Hanen will age 71 on December 10. Later on, he moved to Houston. His most well-known decision was in 2015, when he stopped President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, program from going into effect.
According to the Texas Tribune, Hanen ruled that the program, which would have protected approximately four million undocumented immigrants from deportation and permitted them to lawfully work in the United States, was unlawfully implemented because the federal government had not allowed enough time for public comment. The program came to an end when Justice Antonin Scalia passed away and the Supreme Court ultimately hung 4-4 in the case.
Hanen ruled in 2021 that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which is the sister program of DAPA, is unlawful. The Biden administration attempted to address Hanen’s concerns by introducing an updated version of the program, but Hanen declared it unlawful in 2023. The case is anticipated to eventually reach the Supreme Court, and the Fifth Circuit is currently reviewing an appeal filed by the Biden administration.
Given that the Southern District of Texas is one of the busiest courts in the country in terms of the volume of cases it receives each year, Tobias stated he anticipates Cornyn and Cruz will act swiftly to suggest replacements for Hughes, Alvarez, Rosenthal, and Hanen. Given how long it has gone without a replacement, the US Judicial Conference views Hughes’ vacancy as an emergency.
Additionally, there are two openings in Texas’s Western District and one in the Northern District.
In many districts, particularly the Southern District, it tends to keep the court afloat because they are drowning in cases, Tobias said, adding that granting judges senior status allows them to continue hearing cases but reduces the amount of cases they handle annually.
With the exception of Rosenthal and Hanen, five of the twelve district court judges in the Southern District of Texas’ Houston division are senior judges. They are Gray Miller, Sim Lake, Ewing Werlein, Kenneth Hoyt, and David Hittner. Hughes is seen as inactive and is no longer issued cases despite being senior.
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