A little more than two weeks after the chief judge of the Central District of California called her bench’s shortage of jurists “a crisis of unprecedented magnitude,” the Senate Judiciary Committee moved forward with hearings on two of the president’s Central District nominees. 

Chief U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District of California wrote an Oct. 29 letter to Sens. Lindsey Graham, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, urging them to take steps to fill the open seats in her district. Phillips noted average caseloads in the district have ballooned to twice the national average as more than a third of the district’s 28 active judgeships sit unfilled.