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Open Judgeships Show D.C. Dysfunction

Jill Pryor of Georgia and Rosemary Marquez of Arizona aren't exactly household names, but they share a distinction with national importance: Both have been waiting exactly 689 days for the Senate to act on their nominations to become federal judges.

Yet they aren't even the most extreme examples of Washington's inability to perform one of its most basic functions, filling the federal judiciary across the land. All told, 85 federal judgeships sit vacant, meaning some 10% of the federal judiciary is empty—and this at a...

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