I think we’re at a place where we need to begin thinking about the credibility and integrity of our institutions.”—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, lone Republican U. S. Senator voting against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U. S. Supreme Court

By contrast, a lone Democratic senator voting FOR Kavanaugh’s appointment was Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has a record of voting or working with Republicans on issues such as abortion and gun ownership. He opposed the energy policies of President Barack Obama, voted against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, voted for removing federal funding from Planned Parenthood in 2015, and voted to confirm most of Republican President Donald Trump's Cabinet appointees.

Manchin is up for re-election Nov. 6, when Democrats have 26 currently-held seats that will be contested, including the seats of two independents who caucus with them. Republicans have only nine seats up for election.

From The New York Times, Oct. 6—“For President Trump and for Senate Republicans, confirming Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice will be a hard-won political victory. But for the conservative legal movement, it is a signal triumph, the culmination of a decades-long project that began in the Reagan era with the heady goal of capturing a solid majority on the nation’s highest court.

“Once Judge Kavanaugh is sworn in, the Supreme Court will be more conservative than at any other time in modern history. By some measures, ‘we might be heading into the most conservative era since at least 1937,’ said Lee Epstein, a law professor and political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

“The new majority is sure to move the law to the right on countless deeply contested issues, including abortion, affirmative action, voting and gun rights. And the victory will very likely be a lasting one. Judge Kavanaugh, now 53, could serve for decades, and the other conservative justices are young by Supreme Court standards. The court’s senior liberals are not. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85, and Justice Stephen G. Breyer is 80.

“There will be no swing justice in the mold of Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor or Lewis F. Powell Jr., who forged alliances with both liberals and conservatives. Instead, the court will consist of two distinct blocs — five conservatives and four liberals. The court, in other words, will perfectly reflect the deep polarization of the American public and political system . . .”

Meanwhile, dozens of President Trump’s picks for lower federal courts have already been installed, leaving a conservative imprint on the nation’s judiciary. “In particular,” The Washington Post noted last month, “the White House has filled the influential circuit court judgeships — the second-highest courts in the U.S. and last stop for many major cases — at a faster pace than his recent predecessors. More Trump picks to the circuit courts, also known as the U.S. Courts of Appeals, have been confirmed, 26 so far, than any recent president at this point in their first term. Another 13 of the 179 judgeships on the courts are vacant.”

There are more than 100 lower district court  positions available to be filled by Trump-selected judges.

“The Supreme Court gets the bulk of the attention, but the circuit courts decide the bulk of the cases,” according to Arthur D. Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies the federal judiciary. “Because the Supreme Court these days is taking so few cases, the law of the circuit is, on many, many issues, the final law for the people who live in that circuit.”

There are currently 179 judgeships on the U.S. courts of appeals authorized by Congress. These judges are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. They have lifetime tenure,

Several Senate moves have made it easier for Trump to fill the courts. The 2013 Democratic majority, facing Republican opposition to Obama judicial picks, lowered the number of votes needed for presidential appointees and lower-court judges from 60 to 51 votes, a simple majority. This eliminated a need for bipartisanship on those nominations. (Republicans have since extended that to Supreme Court justices—thus Kavanaugh’s confirmation required only 51 rather than 60 votes.)

When Republicans regained the Senate in 2015 with Obama in office, confirmations slowed significantly. The GOP, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was refusing votes on dozens of judicial nominees to run out the clock on their confirmations. Thus, in 2016, Trump was elected with a high number of vacancies waiting to be filled.

It’s interesting that circuit court appointments by Obama included 43.6% women, compared to Trump’s 23.1%. Obama’s picks also were 34.5% nonwhite, compared to 11.5% for Trump.

.

.