The efforts of Republicans and their allies to install reliably conservative decision-makers in the federal judiciary is well documented. Their aim is clear:  By packing the federal courts with their ideological cohorts, Republicans can rely on the judiciary to advance a conservative policy agenda notwithstanding the limitations of electoral politics.

Although these efforts to create a conservative judiciary started decades ago, they reached their nadir with the Trump administration.  Supreme Court confirmation battles understandably attract most of the attention, but most of the work has been directed toward the lower federal courts, where conservatives have seen remarkable success.  The President and Senate Republicans have filled the federal judiciary with judges whose decisions from the bench have advanced Republican and conservative movement goals, such as abolishing the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), promoting unrestricted access to firearms, and making it harder to vote for persons believed to be Democratic Party constituents.