Judicial vacancies languish on key federal appeals court

The federal appeals court on the Washington, D.C., circuit is akin, as the author puts it, to Triple-A baseball. For some ball players, it is their last stop before the bigs, and for judges, it is their last stop before the Supreme Court. For this reason it has been increasingly hard for President Obama to fill vacancies. Caitlin Halligan withdrew her nomination after a second filibuster in the Senate and Obama now stands behind Sri Srinivasan who may very well be able to garner nonpartisan support a lot easier. There are currently four vacancies on the court of 11 but critics argue they don’t need to be filled immediately due to a low workload.