Republicans have been flat-out winning the battle for the judiciary — the \u201cshadow war\u201d in the fight for control of America\u2019s government. We all know about the Supreme Court, but underneath the Supreme Court there are 13 courts of appeals, and below them 94 district courts. \u00a0Most of the time, it is those lower courts that have the final word on questions of federal law. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said they are \u201cwhere policy is made.\u201d Donald Trump substantially shifted the calculus of those courts. By the time he left office, he had appointed about one quarter of the total judges, and at ultra-important appellate level, Trump had shifted Republican-appointed judges from holding 40% of the seats to an outright majority at 54%. Trump also flipped 3 of those 13 courts to Republican-appointed majorities, meaning that 7 of the 13 Courts of Appeals are now controlled by jurists picked by Republicans.<\/p>\n
Our guest today, calls this a “conservative fortress” in the federal judiciary. But he\u2019s devised a smart, constitutional method for scaling that fortress\u2026and it\u2019s not court-packing or term limits, or probably anything you\u2019ve heard before. Chris Sprigman is the Murray and Kathleen Bring Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law, the author of numerous articles in law reviews and other scholarly publications, and he\u2019s here to tell us all about it.<\/p>\n