The Senate confirms a federal judge by first sending the president’s nominee to the Judiciary Committee for a background review, questionnaire, public hearing, and committee vote, and then to the full Senate, where a simple majority is now enough to invoke cloture and confirm. That simple-majority threshold applies to every Article III judgeship, from district court up through the Supreme Court, and it is the single most important procedural fact about Senate confirmation of federal judges today.
The Constitution gives the president the power to nominate judges and the Senate the power of “advice and consent.”1U.S. Senate. Judicial Nominations Overview2Federal Judicial Center. Congress and the Courts: Committees on the Judiciary3U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. About the Chairman4U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Members
The Steps From Nomination to the Bench
Nomination and Background Vetting
The process starts in the White House Counsel’s Office, working with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy on candidate selection. The FBI and DOJ conduct independent background investigations, and the nominee completes a detailed Senate Judiciary Questionnaire.5Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The Judicial Appointment Process A committee hearing is generally considered ready to proceed 28 days after the questionnaire is received.
Committee Hearing and Vote
Nominees appear before the Judiciary Committee for public questioning, with current practice typically limiting a hearing panel to around six nominees at a time. After the hearing, the committee votes whether to report each nominee to the full Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation. A majority of members present is required to report a nominee, and while proxy voting is permitted, the Senate Parliamentarian has interpreted the rules to count only negative proxies.5Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The Judicial Appointment Process
Floor Action and the Simple-Majority Rule
Once reported, the nomination goes on the Senate’s Executive Calendar. The majority leader files a cloture motion, which requires 16 senators’ signatures, to limit debate. After a waiting period, the Senate holds a cloture vote. If cloture is invoked by a simple majority, post-cloture debate is capped at two hours for most nominees and 30 hours for circuit court picks, followed by a final confirmation vote, also by simple majority.6U.S. Senate. Testimony of Elizabeth Rybicki on Senate Nominations Process
That simple-majority threshold is recent. In November 2013, Senate Democrats under Majority Leader Harry Reid used the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster for judicial nominees other than the Supreme Court, changing the rule on a 52–48 vote.7American Bar Association. Filibuster In April 2017, Republicans under Mitch McConnell extended the same rule to Supreme Court nominees after Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch.8Politico. Senate Goes Nuclear to Confirm Gorsuch Every federal judicial nominee now needs 51 votes, or 50 plus the vice president, to be confirmed.
The Blue-Slip Custom
Alongside the formal rules, one informal custom can quietly decide whether a nominee ever gets a hearing. Home-state senators receive a blue slip on which they signal their approval or disapproval of a nominee to a court in their state. Blue slips are not part of the committee’s written rules; their weight depends entirely on the chair, and enforcement has swung back and forth for a century.9EveryCRSReport. The History of the Blue Slip Process in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Grassley currently honors blue slips for district court judges, U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. Marshals, saying there are “not enough votes in the Senate to advance a district judge, U.S. Attorney or U.S. Marshal nominee who doesn’t have a blue slip.”10Office of Senator Chuck Grassley. Q&A on Blue Slips For circuit court nominees, he stopped honoring them in 2017, which makes it easier to confirm appellate judges over home-state objections.11Courthouse News Service. Blue Slips, Judicial Threats, Slowing Nominations Top Committee Docket President Trump has called the practice a “hoax” and unconstitutional and pressed Senate Republicans to drop it; Grassley has declined.
Where Confirmations Stand Now
As of late March 2026, the Senate has confirmed 34 Article III judges during Trump’s second term: six circuit court judges and 28 district court judges. There have been no Supreme Court nominations.12U.S. Courts. Confirmation Listing In 2025 alone, 26 lifetime judicial appointments were completed, later put at 27 by most counts. That trailed the 40 confirmations the Biden administration secured in its first year.13Roll Call. Trump’s 2025 Saw 26 Lifetime Judicial Nominees Approved A Brookings analysis attributed the slower pace in part to a “paucity of vacancies,” noting that Biden had already filled many open seats and that fewer Republican-appointed judges left active service after the 2024 election than in past transitions.14Brookings Institution. Paucity of Vacancies Slows Trump’s Effort to Reshape Courts
Opposition on the floor has been unusually heavy. All six appellate confirmations in 2025 drew 40 or more “no” votes, as did 18 of 21 district court confirmations. During Trump’s first term, none of his first ten district court picks faced that level of opposition.14Brookings Institution. Paucity of Vacancies Slows Trump’s Effort to Reshape Courts Democrats have also forced recorded floor votes on every executive-branch nominee, and the resulting backlog led Majority Leader John Thune to threaten cancelling part of the August recess.15The New York Times. Senate Confirmation Slowdown
A Congressional Research Service look at circuit court nominees found that 65 percent of Biden’s confirmed appellate judges and 63 percent of Trump’s first-term appellate picks received more than 40 “no” votes, compared with Obama and George W. Bush eras when a majority of confirmed nominees received zero “no” votes, often approved by voice vote or unanimous consent.16Congressional Research Service. U.S. Circuit Court Nominees Confirmed Reporting on the current class of nominees found that roughly 63 percent are white men and about 25 percent are women, with no women of color among the group.17The 19th. Women Federal Judges in Trump’s Second Term
Two Fights That Show How the Process Works Now
Emil Bove and a 50–49 Confirmation
The closest confirmation fight of the current Congress involved Emil Bove, a former personal attorney for Donald Trump and top DOJ official nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The Senate confirmed him 50–49 on July 29, 2025, with Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats in opposition.18Politico. Senate Confirms Emil Bove to Third Circuit
Three whistleblowers raised allegations against Bove during the process. Former career DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni alleged that at a March 2025 meeting about deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act, Bove suggested the DOJ should consider telling the courts “f— you” if judges tried to block the removals.19The Hill. Senate Confirms Emil Bove to Appeals Court Chief Judge James Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order on March 15, 2025, barring removals under the Act, and an internal DOJ email the next day indicated Bove had told the Department of Homeland Security that continuing flights already outside U.S. airspace was “permissible.”20Just Security. Bove, Criminal Contempt, and Judge Boasberg In April 2025, Judge Boasberg found probable cause that administration officials, Bove included, had engaged in criminal contempt. A second whistleblower corroborated the account; a third alleged that Bove misled Congress about the dismissal of bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Bove denied the allegations at his June 2025 hearing. Democrats sought sworn testimony from Reuveni, and Grassley declined, calling the disclosures “breathless accusations” timed to disrupt the nomination.
Alina Habba and a Blue-Slip Blockade
The blue-slip custom produced its highest-profile test when New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim withheld support for Alina Habba, Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, calling her unqualified. Without blue-slip support, the nomination stalled and Trump withdrew it.11Courthouse News Service. Blue Slips, Judicial Threats, Slowing Nominations Top Committee Docket Habba stayed on in an acting capacity, but in August 2025 U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled in a 77-page decision that she had been “unlawfully serving” and that the administration had used an improper workaround to evade the 120-day statutory limit on interim appointments.21Courthouse News Service. Trump Loyalist Alina Habba Steps Down as Top New Jersey Federal Prosecutor On December 1, 2025, a unanimous three-judge Third Circuit panel upheld the ruling in a 32-page opinion by Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher, holding that the administration’s “multistep maneuver” violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007.22New Jersey Monitor. Federal Judges Rule on Trump U.S. Attorney Habba resigned on December 8, 2025, and moved to a role as Senior Advisor to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Vacancies and Judicial Emergencies
As of late March 2026, 36 Article III judgeships are vacant, with eight nominees pending before the Senate.23U.S. Courts. Current Judicial Vacancies Fifteen of those seats have been classified as “judicial emergencies” by the Judicial Conference of the United States, a designation based on caseload combined with the length and number of vacancies in a court.24U.S. Courts. Judicial Emergencies Texas carries the heaviest load: ten of the fifteen emergencies sit in the Northern, Southern, and Western Districts of Texas, some open since mid-2023. A vacancy in the Southern District of California has been pending since August 2021, more than 1,700 days.
A Note on the Supreme Court
No Supreme Court nomination has come forward in Trump’s current term, so all of the confirmations described above are for lower federal courts. The recent history of high court votes tracks the same partisan pattern:
- Ketanji Brown Jackson, confirmed 53–47 on April 7, 2022.25U.S. Senate. Supreme Court Nominations, 1789–Present
- Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed 52–48 on October 26, 2020.
- Brett Kavanaugh, confirmed 50–48 on October 6, 2018.
- Neil Gorsuch, confirmed 54–45 on April 7, 2017.
The seat Gorsuch filled had been vacant since the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, never received a hearing or a vote after Senate Republicans declined to act on the nomination during a presidential election year.25U.S. Senate. Supreme Court Nominations, 1789–Present