Today the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts designated a Third Circuit seat as a judicial emergency. The emergency is for the seat that opened when Judge Scirica took senior status and that Judge Restrepo has been nominated to fill.

CA3 joins CA5 and CA11 as the only circuits with AOC-designated judicial emergencies. The Scirica seat qualifies as a judicial emergency because the vacancy has existed for more than 18 months and CA3’s adjusted filings are between 500 and 700 per panel.

Paul Gordon of People for the America Way here lamented the CA3 emergency and criticized the Judiciary Committee’s failure to act more quickly on Restrepo’s nomination (I’ve added a link and omitted another):

next week’s committee schedule is up [link here], and no hearings have been announced for judicial nominees.

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The good news is that district court judge L. Felipe Restrepo was nominated to fill this seat way back in November, and that he has the enthusiastic support of his home state senators, Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Pat Toomey. The bad news is that Chairman Grassley continues not to schedule a hearing for this highly qualified nominee (or any other). With this vacancy now a judicial emergency and a second vacancy on the circuit opening in July, the decision to slow-walk this nomination is even more harmful.

H/T Glenn Sugameli of Defenders of Wildlife.