Federal district judges in North Carolina and Ohio decided to not seek semi-retired status after Trump won last month.
A second Democrat-appointed federal judge has rescinded a decision to create a new judicial vacancy in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory.
The move by U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn of North Carolina was made as time is running out for President Joe Biden to nominate new judges and get them confirmed by the Senate before Democrats lose their majority in that chamber when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2025. Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Cogburn’s name disappeared from an official list of expected judicial vacancies on Nov. 30 after appearing on the list the month before.
Cogburn said in 2022 that he planned to take on senior status, a kind of semi-retirement for long-serving federal judges that creates a vacancy that a president can fill, subject to Senate confirmation. Judges with senior status continue to receive full pay but typically have a reduced workload.
After Cogburn’s 2022 announcement, Biden failed to nominate anyone to succeed the judge. Under Senate customs, home state senators may block a judicial nominee. Both of North Carolina’s senators—Thom Tillis and Ted Budd—are Republicans. The senators and the White House failed to agree on a replacement for Cogburn.
After senators reached a deal to advance some of Biden’s remaining judicial nominees before he leaves office, Tillis said on Nov. 21 that judges should not back out of a commitment to assume senior status.
“I expect that the judges who submitted their retirements will not play partisan politics with a presidential transition and a bipartisan Senate deal by going back on their word to retire,” Tillis said.
Before Cogburn changed his mind about taking senior status, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley of Ohio told the White House after Trump’s election victory on Nov. 5 that he planned to withdraw his bid for senior status. Marbley was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, in 1997.
Ohio’s senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican JD Vance, who is the vice president-elect, reportedly could not agree with Biden on a replacement for Marbley.
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