A big part of a president’s impact on the country comes through the individuals he appoints to important positions. Today, the Constitution and federal statutes provide for 1,855 positions to be filled by a presidential appointment that requires Senate approval. These include 870 positions on courts with life-tenured judges, 46 positions on courts with judges who serve 15-year terms, and 936 political positions in the executive and legislative branches. Here’s a progress report after the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Judicial Appointments
Article III of the Constitution created the Supreme Court and gives Congress authority to create, as well as determine the size and distribution of, “inferior courts.” Judges on these courts serve during “good Behaviour,” that is, until they choose to vacate their appointed positions or are removed by House impeachment and Senate conviction.
This means that the process of determining the composition of the judiciary is dispersed: vacancies exist when judges decide to leave or Congress creates new positions; the president alone chooses whom to nominate to fill current or known future vacancies; and the Senate determines whether the president gets to appoint those he has nominated.
Three-fourths of new vacancies on Article III courts occur when a judge takes “senior status,” continuing judicial service, often with a reduced caseload, but making his or her “active” position available for a new appointment. An average of 33 judges on the federal district and appeals courts have taken senior status each year since 1980.
The basic norms of the judicial appointment process changed radically in 2017, as Democrats chose to confront Trump by fighting his nominees. Between 1901 and 2017, from President Teddy Roosevelt through President Barack Obama, 94 percent of judicial nominees were confirmed with no opposition. That figure plunged to 22 percent in Trump’s first term, and just four percent under President Joe Biden. In fact, 31 percent more votes were cast against confirming Trump’s first-term judicial nominees than in the previous 116 years combined.
Democrats introduced a level of routine partisanship that had never before existed in the Senate’s confirmation process. Before Trump took office in 2017, confirmation conflicts were few and far between and focused on issues — real or manufactured — particular to an individual nominee. The conflict surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas’s appointment in 1991, for example, looms large, but only three of President George H. W. Bush’s 192 judicial appointees received even a single negative confirmation vote, and more than 98 percent were confirmed quickly without a recorded vote.
A majority Republican Senate confirmed very few of Obama’s judicial nominees in his last two years; relative to the size of the judiciary, the confirmation rate in the 116th Congress (2015–16) was the lowest in American history. This gave Trump more than 100 vacancies to fill when he took office in 2017. In contrast, a majority Democrat Senate confirmed so many Biden nominees that Trump had fewer than half as many vacancies to fill on Inauguration Day 2025.
While both the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate have processed judicial nominations efficiently, there simply haven’t been many vacancies to fill. The number of judges taking senior status during Trump’s second term, at least so far, is nearly 30 percent below the historical average, and only 41 judicial positions are currently vacant. If Trump matches the average appointment pace over the previous four decades, he will have appointed more than 410 judges during two terms, more than any president in history.
Political Appointments
Article II of the Constitution gives the president authority to “nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate . . . [to] . . . appoint . . . Officers of the United States.” The “Plum Book” (the cover color of United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions), published shortly after each presidential election, lists thousands of positions in the executive and legislative branches that are filled outside of the regular civil service hiring process. These include positions that require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.
A nomination is first referred to the relevant committee and, if approved, reported to the full Senate and listed on the Executive Calendar. The majority leader — currently John Thune (R., S.D.) — decides whether and when to put particular nominations before the Senate for action, and the minority leader — currently Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) — decides whether to cooperate or use procedural tactics to make the confirmation process cumbersome and time-consuming.
Here, too, Democrats have destroyed the norms that long characterized the confirmation process. Each new presidential administration, especially during its first several months and when the political parties switch, prioritizes appointing the top leaders of Cabinet departments and major agencies. Traditionally, the Senate confirms most nominations to these positions quickly and without time-consuming recorded votes. That really makes a difference, as recorded votes require the presence of all Senators and take an average of 45 minutes or more. Confirmation by voice vote or unanimous consent requires only a few Senators’ presence and takes a minute or less.
During the first six months under Presidents Ronald Reagan through Obama, the Senate confirmed an average of 88 percent of their top-tier nominations by unanimous consent or voice vote. That kind of cooperation ended when Trump took office in 2017, with the Senate efficiently confirming only 17 percent of his top executive branch nominations. And last year, in the first six months of Trump’s second term, there was no cooperation at all as that figure dropped to zero.
Every administration decides where appointments fit on its list of priorities, and the pace of nominations typically picks up as the first year proceeds. During their first year, the previous four presidents (two Republicans and two Democrats) made an average of 11 percent of their executive branch nominations during the first quarter and 22 percent in the fourth. Last year, Trump reversed that pattern in dramatic fashion, making 57 percent of his nominations in the first quarter and just six percent in the fourth. As a result of this slowdown, Trump’s nomination total, which had been well ahead of those four predecessors early in the year, slipped to fourth place by the end of 2025.
Because of the sheer number of executive branch positions that need filling, another confirmation norm had long been that the Senate would confirm nominees in groups rather than one at a time. Both parties routinely consented to what are called “en bloc” confirmations. Democrats also trashed that norm. The combination of forcing recorded votes and separate consideration of individual nominations took such a toll last year that, by mid-September, the Senate had been able to confirm only 34 percent of the executive branch nominations reported by committees, compared to 80 percent of Biden’s nominations and 78 percent of Trump’s first-term picks at the same point.
Republicans solved this problem by formalizing, via establishing a parliamentary precedent, the en bloc option that both parties had once routinely respected. The Senate voted, along party lines, of course, to interpret Senate rules to allow consideration of most executive branch nominations in groups rather than singly. This tactic worked; the Senate has so far taken this step three times, confirming more than 200 nominations with just a few votes. As a result, the percentage of available nominations the Senate has confirmed has tripled in the last three months.
The Senate’s judicial confirmation pace has been modest because there are few judicial positions to fill, and its executive confirmation pace has slowed because Trump is not making many nominations. The entire process is much more combative and cumbersome than it used to be, or than it needs to be, a trend that seems likely to become the “new normal” going forward.