Where are the Trump judges?

When President Donald J. Trump took office in January 2017, California attorneys and court watchers alike looked with anticipation to see what the new executive would do with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

At the time, the Trump White House had four seats to fill on the court, a number that appears to be unparalleled.

Since Trump’s inauguration, three more seats have opened up on the 9th Circuit. Two of these, vacated by the abrupt resignation of Alex Kozinski and the sudden death of Stephen Reinhardt, give Trump an opportunity to fill the seats of some of the court’s most influential jurists.

By August, when Idaho-based judge N. Randy Smith takes senior status, Trump will have an eighth spot to fill on the 29-judge court.

Given these numbers, many court watchers assumed Trump would be able to reshape the 9th Circuit, often celebrated or decried as especially liberal leaning.

The 9th Circuit itself has proved to be a challenge to the Trump administration, repeatedly upholding injunctions against some of the president’s signature policies. The court’s decisions to affirm temporary blocks to his travel ban and decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have vexed the president enough to make the court the subject of angry tweets.

The president has described 9th Circuit rulings as “ridiculous” and said the court is an example of a “broken and unfair” federal judiciary.

But for a president, allied with a Republican Congress keen on filling the courts with conservative judges, Trump has been slow to make his mark on a court that has been a roadblock to a number of his goals.

While he has surpassed his predecessors in placing nominees on the federal courts — Trump successfully installed more nominees on the federal appellate bench in his first year in office than any other president — after a year and three months into office, no Trump judge sits on the 9th Circuit.

He has nominated two people to the court thus far. One, Hawaii’s former attorney general Mark J. Bennett, nominated in February, enjoys the support of his Democratic home state senators and appears to have an easy path ahead of him.

He could likely be Trump’s first successfully confirmed nominee.

Last week, Bennett sat through a relatively uneventful Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which his only apparent detractor was Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. However, no vote has been scheduled on his nomination. If confirmed, Bennett would replace George W. Bush appointee Richard Clifton, considered a moderate conservative on the court, who took senior status in 2016.

In Oregon, where Trump has tried to replace conservative 9th Circuit stalwart Diarmuid O’Scannlain, who also took senior status in 2016, with his former clerk, federal prosecutor Ryan Bounds, the president appears to have hit a wall. The state’s two Democratic senators cried foul when Bounds’ name was announced in September, saying the president had not properly consulted with them.

Since then, the Oregon senators have refused to return blue slips on the nominee, objecting to controversial articles Bounds wrote on the topics of race and sexual assault while studying at Stanford University in the 1990s.

Bounds’ nomination has become the crucible of Sen. Chuck Grassley’s blue slip policy.

Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is responsible for determining how blue slips — informal signals of approval from a nominee’s home state senators — affect hearing procedures. Last year, Grassley indicated an unreturned blue slip would not be enough to stall circuit nominees. He has not said how he will proceed with circuit judge nominees, like Bounds, who lack support from both home state senators.

Bounds has yet to receive a Judiciary Committee hearing.

In California, where three seats remain open, the Trump administration has made little headway.

Two of the seats were vacated by iconic liberal judges, Reinhardt and the late Harry Pregerson. Trump’s picks for these seats could alter the ideological balance of the court. California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris do not appear ready to give Trump unfettered discretion with California 9th Circuit seats.

In fact, when Reinhardt died in late March, Feinstein released a statement indicating her intent to involve herself in the selection process for potential nominees.

“It’s no secret that President Trump and Republicans want to reshape the 9th Circuit and we will not accept unwarranted, partisan attacks on our courts,” she said to reporters. “I am fully committed to ensuring that 9th Circuit nominees reflect our state’s communities and values and are well-regarded by their local bench and bar.”

Feinstein touted what she described as the success of her screening process, by which committees of attorneys of her selection vet potential judicial candidates. This is a common practice in many states.

Last summer, the White House sent Feinstein and Harris a list of five potential names for a California 9th Circuit seat. At that point, only one seat was open on the court.

On the list were Washington, D.C.-based Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner Daniel Bress, Los Angeles-based Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP partner Daniel Collins, Los Angeles-based Jenner & Block LLP partner Kenneth Lee, Judge James Rogan, who sits on the Orange County Superior Court, and Burbank-based Horvitz & Levy LLP partner Jeremy Rosen.

Feinstein’s judicial selection committee, chaired by San Diego attorney David S. Casey Jr, interviewed the candidates in November, according to a source familiar with the process, and Harris’ judicial selection committee, which is chaired by Los Angeles attorney Brian Nelson, interviewed some candidates in March.

It is unclear whether the committee interviewed everyone on the White House’s list. Neither senator’s office returned requests for comment on this article.

Historically, the rate at which presidents filled openings on the 9th Circuit have fluctuated. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who all assumed the presidency with openings on the 9th Circuit, were also slow to appoint judges to the court.

Clinton waited a year and eight months before seeing a successful confirmation. It took Bush a year and six months for his first 9th Circuit judge to be confirmed. And Obama waited a year and 11 months before seeing his first successful appointee.

In earlier decades, successful appointments were swifter.

George H. W. Bush waited only four months before two of his appointees were confirmed. Reagan saw his first pick to the court confirmed six months after an opening on the court came in late 1983.