Trump poised to reshape the federal judiciary for a generation

After expanding their Senate majority despite losing the House on Tuesday, Republicans are poised to reshape the federal judiciary for a generation—with implications for everything from arbitration to contraception to climate change.

Moving the judiciary farther to the right has long been among the Republican Party’s major goals, and Republicans have had consider success in that endeavor. The Supreme Court has had a Republican-appointed majority at all times since 1970, so the general trend of legal doctrine has been decidedly rightward for half a century. But the project of staffing a Republican judiciary has picked up speed under President Donald Trump. So far, the Trump administration has appointed 84 federal judges—almost twice as many as President Barack Obama had appointed at the comparable stage of his administration.