The Senate adjourned just before 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday after confirming Keith Sonderling to serve as Secretary of Labor. Left pending on the Senate floor, however, were three of Trump’s lifetime judicial nominees.
Those nominees — Daniel Domenico for the Tenth Circuit, Anna St. John for the Fifth Circuit, and Gregory Cook for the Northern District of Alabama — will have to wait for votes until after the midterm elections. Other than pro forma sessions, the Senate will next convene on Monday, November 9, at 3 p.m.
Over the past three weeks since senators have been back from summer recess, the Senate has confirmed three more lifetime judicial nominees — Matthew Byrne (Southern District of Ohio), Kasdin Mitchell (Northern District of Texas), and Angela Colmenero (Southern District of Texas).
Those three weeks of Senate activity also included two confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee — one on September 16 and one just yesterday — that featured 10 more lifetime nominees. All 10 nominees are men. Three additional nominees, who are also all men, await a confirmation hearing. It is unclear whether one of those nominees — Samuel Adkisson for the Eastern District of Tennessee — will receive a hearing at all given that Senator Marsha Blackburn is apparently blocking his nomination.
Those 10 nominees will receive committee votes when the Senate returns next month. The timing will depend on whether the Judiciary Committee sticks to a normal schedule, or whether they schedule markups around holidays (such as holding one on Tuesday, November 10 in advance of their Veterans Day break for the rest of that week). That is up to the Republican majority to determine.
The three recent confirmations bring Trump’s second-term total to 56 lifetime judges. Nearly 90 percent of those judges are white, and three quarters are men. Sixteen nominees remain pending on the Senate floor and in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 15 of them are men. Almost all are white. Trump has remained dedicated to nominating individuals with ultraconservative ties and appointing lawyers who have worked relentlessly to restrict civil and human rights, including voting rights, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive freedom, and more. He has also made it clear that he expects loyalty to him and the MAGA agenda. In turn, his nominees have uniformly refused to say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
To date, there have been 290 lifetime confirmations across both of his presidential terms. Overall, about 85 percent are white and about three quarters are men. While the gender breakdown of Trump’s lifetime nominees has remained fairly steady across his two terms, his second-term judicial picks are actually more likely to be white — reflecting his administration’s aggressive push to resegregate American institutions.
Time is now quickly running out in 2026 for Senate Republicans to confirm all of Trump’s pending nominees. And Trump might not be done making nominations. While the Senate will meet for pro forma sessions over the next five weeks, they won’t actually be back to conduct any business until November 9. Even when they do come back, they have several other breaks planned. They’ll be out November 11-13 for Veterans Day and the week of November 23 for Thanksgiving. When they return on November 30, they’ll have three weeks, according to the current schedule, to confirm as many judges as possible before adjourning for the holidays.
Under a normal Senate Judiciary Committee schedule, another confirmation hearing could take place on November 18 — giving Trump until October 21 to announce additional nominees who could appear that day. A hearing that day would force nominees to answer written questions for the record over Thanksgiving weekend. They would be on the agenda of a December 3 Judiciary Committee meeting, held over for a week, and then receive committee votes on Thursday, December 10. That would make them eligible for confirmation the following week — which is the last week the Senate is expected to be in session.
Here’s another possibility: Chair Chuck Grassley could schedule a recess hearing in October to process the nominees who still need one (including Adkisson, if Senator Blackburn allows him to proceed). This happened during Trump’s first term, when Chair Grassley — for the first time in Senate history — held two hearings over the objections of the minority party. Chair Grassley held those hearings in October 2018 right before the midterms. Holding a recess hearing, rather than (or in addition to) holding a November hearing, could possibly allow those nominees to make it to the Senate floor slightly sooner.
The Senate is only scheduled to be in DC for just over four weeks through the end of the year, and 16 nominees remain pending. Still, there are a ton of other judicial vacancies that don’t yet have nominees, including recent ones in South Carolina and Nebraska, another new one on the Fifth Circuit, and additional seats in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. That’s nine vacancies total (and those are just the ones that Republicans can fill while blue slips for district court nominees are honored).
It’s fair to say that the Senate is not going to fill all of these seats in 2026. Some of them may never get filled by Trump depending on what happens in the midterm elections. Victories by Roy Cooper and James Talarico, for example, could mean that the North Carolina and Texas vacancies will remain unfilled.
If Republicans retain control of the Senate, they can continue to process Trump’s nominees, as they have been, in the upcoming 120th Congress. And they could go further: If Senator Mike Lee takes over as chair of the Judiciary Committee, he could decide to demolish blue slips — something Trump has been calling for — and fill vacancies across the country over the objections of Democratic home-state senators. Senator Lee recently said he didn’t expect to end the blue slip tradition — but he did not rule out changing how it’s enforced.
If Democrats take control, however, they could block all nominees. That would be up to their new chair, likely Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has voted to advance the nominations of eight Trump 2.0 lifetime nominees as a member of the committee. Scheduling hearings would be up to him. And even if hearings are held, a Democratic majority on the committee would get to decide if anyone advances to the Senate floor.
Many questions remain, but here’s what I’m watching for:
Will Chair Grassley notice a recess hearing in October to process the few remaining nominees?
Will Trump announce even more nominees for the Senate to (attempt to) deal with this year?
Will the Judiciary Committee creatively schedule committee activity around November holidays to move nominees a bit more quickly?
Will Senator Blackburn explain what’s happening with Adkisson’s nomination?
Who will have control of the Senate next year — and how will that change, or not change, how the Senate moves forward on judicial nominations through the end of the 119th Congress?
More to come.