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The Federal Judicial Vacancy Count 3/1/2025

  • ️Sat Mar 01 2025

From Ballotpedia

March 1, 2025

Welcome to the Federal Vacancy Count for March 1, 2025! The Federal Vacancy Count tracks vacancies, nominations, and confirmations to all United States Article III federal courts.

This month's edition covers activity from February 2, 2025, through March 1, 2025, and compares Article III judicial appointments over time by president and by court type through March 1 of their first year in office.[1]

What's a vacancy?

A vacancy occurs when a judge resigns, retires, takes senior status, or dies. Article III judges refer to judges who serve on courts authorized by Article III of the Constitution, which created and enumerated the powers of the judiciary. Article III judges are appointed for life terms. Unless a judge is impeached and removed from office—something that has occurred eight times in the history of the federal judiciary—it is the judge's decision how long they remain on the court. When judges decide to leave active duty, they may either retire completely from the court or take senior status.

To take senior status, judges must meet certain age and service requirements. Senior status is a classification for federal judges at all levels who are semi-retired. Senior judges continue to serve on federal courts while hearing a reduced number of cases. Both a decision to retire and a decision to take senior status trigger a vacancy.

The Constitution prescribes the process of filling a vacancy. The president nominates a candidate, who then must be confirmed by the United States Senate. There are multiple steps to the process:

  • The president nominates an individual for a judicial seat.
  • The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing with the nominee.
  • After the hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes to approve or return the nominee.
  • If approved, the Senate holds a vote on the candidate.

For more information on this process, click here.

Vacancy count for March 1, 2025

The vacancy level was Bluedot.png in February 2025. The total vacancy percentage was 4.9 percent, and there were 43 vacancies out of 870 Article III judicial positions.

A breakdown of the vacancies at each level can be found in the table below. For a more detailed look at the vacancies on the federal courts, click here.

Key:
(Numbers indicate % of seats vacant.)
0%1%-9%
10%-24%25%-40%
More than 40%


Though the United States territorial courts are named as district courts, they are not Article III courts. They are created in accordance with the power granted under Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. Click here for more information.

New vacancies

One judge left active status, creating one Article III life-term judicial vacancy. As Article III judicial positions, these vacancies must be filled by a nomination from the president. Nominations are subject to confirmation on the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Court of Appeals vacancies

Chart

The following chart tracks the number of vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals from the inauguration of President Donald Trump (R) to March 1, 2025.

Maps

The following maps show the number of vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals at the inauguration of President Donald Trump (R) and as of March 1, 2025.

U.S. District Court vacancies

The following map shows the number of vacancies in the United States District Courts as of March 1, 2025.

New nominations

President Donald Trump (R) announced no new nominations since the previous report.

Since taking office for his second term in January 2025, President Donald Trump (R) has not made any Article III judicial nominations.

New confirmations


There were no new confirmations since the previous report.

Since taking office for his second term in January 2025, President Donald Trump (R) has not made any Article III judicial nominations. To review a complete list of Trump's confirmed nominees, click here.

Comparison of Article III judicial appointments over time by president

See also: Federal judicial appointments by president

The chart below details the number of Article III judicial appointments during each president's first term at four specific dates: end of first year in office, end of second year, end of the third year, and end of the fourth year. It includes Presidents Ronald Reagan (R) through Donald Trump (R).

  • Presidents have made an average of 0 judicial appointments through March 1 of their first year in office.
  • From Ronald Reagan (R) through Donald Trump (R), no president made Article III judicial appointments through March 1 of their first year.
  • President Joe Biden (D) made the most appointments through four years with 235. President Ronald Reagan (R) made the fewest through four years with 166.
  • President Bill Clinton (D) made the most appointments through two years with 128. President Barack Obama (D) made the fewest with 62.
  • President Ronald Reagan (R) made the most appointments through one year in office with 41. President Barack Obama (D) made the fewest with 13.

Comparison of Article III judicial appointments over time by president and court type

See also: Federal judicial appointments by president

The table and chart below show the number of Article III judges confirmed by the U.S. Senate under each of the last seven presidents as of March 1 of their first year in office. The confirmations are broken up by court type.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The U.S. Courts website publishes data for the previous month on the first of the following month.
  2. ↑ For the purposes of this data, Ballotpedia considers the announcement of the intent to nominate an individual as a nomination.