Trump's Judicial Inheritance

Today's updates from Ballotpedia No Images? [Click here] [Ballotpedia's Daily Brew] A First Since Bill Clinton Ballotpedia released an in-depth report comparing the vacancies that President-elect Trump will inherit at the start of his first presidential term with those of his five immediate predecessors. The analysis shows that Trump will inherit 108 vacancies, representing roughly one in every eight life-term federal judicial positions (12.41%). Not since President Bill Clinton has a president had the opportunity to fill so many vacancies in the federal courts at the start of his first term. After breaking down the data by circuit court and district court to compare percentages, the report finds that Trump has the third-highest percentage of circuit court vacancies and the second-highest percentage of district court vacancies among recent incoming administrations. [Read on: Judicial vacancies during Trump's first term] The Supreme Court concludes its January sitting on Wednesday with arguments in four cases. In Lee v. Tam, the court will review a case of patent and trademark law. Simon Shiao Tam attempted to register his band's name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for trademark protection. The PTO refused, citing a provision of the Lanham Act, a federal trademark law that prohibits extending trademark protection to anyone registering scandalous, immoral, or disparaging marks. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the PTO's claim, holding that the provision of the Lanham Act used to deny Tam's request violated his rights of free expression under the First Amendment. The court will also hear arguments in three consolidated appeals from a decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that the respondents in these cases, a class of litigants illegally detained pursuant to investigations of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had plausibly alleged their various claims such that the parties could proceed to a trial on the merits. [Lee v. Tam] [Ashcroft v. Abbasi] [Hasty v. Abbasi] [Ziglar v. Abbasi] President Obama commuted the sentence of Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning yesterday. Manning has been jailed for close to seven years and is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking military documents to the website Wikileaks. Obama's commutation means that her sentence will end on May 17, 2017. Executive clemency includes the powers to pardon an individual of a federal crime, to commute or reduce a federal sentence, and to remit fines. As of October 2016, Obama had issued 672 commutations, the third most of any president between 1902 and 2016. Read more about the ins and outs of executive clemency below. [Read on: Executive clemency] Today's Confirmation Hearings: - Wilbur Ross for Secretary of Commerce - Scott Pruitt for EPA Administrator - Nikki Haley for U.N. Ambassador - Tom Price for Secretary of Health and Human Services [Read on: Confirmation hearings] Help keep your friends and colleagues up to date on political news. Forward this email or share on your favorite social media site. You are receiving this email because you signed up for email updates on Ballotpedia.org. Too many emails? Change your preferences below. [Like] [Tweet] [Share] [Forward] [Preferences] | [Unsubscribe]