We Delivered Empty Chairs to Ted Cruz's Office to Protest Federal Judicial Vacancies

The empty seat on the Supreme Court is just a small part of the major vacancy problem in our federal courts.

The Supreme Court began a new term this week with an empty seat. It's a serious problem that threatens the very legitimacy of our judicial branch of government, as President Obama himself wrote in an op-ed yesterday:

In a city of self-inflicted wounds, this one is more dangerous and less defensible than most.

It’s been 202 days since I nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. That’s more than five months longer than the average nominee has had to wait over the last 40 years to receive a hearing in Congress – let alone an up or down vote. 

But the problem goes far beyond the Supreme Court. As we wrote last week, Texas now has 13 vacancies in our federal courts - more than any in the country.

To highlight this problem, we delivered miniature empty chairs to Sen. Ted Cruz's Austin office, urging him to take swift action and solve our judicial vacancy crisis.

Check out a video and some photos of our delivery below.

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