Opponents of the civil justice system have a great plan on how to deny victims their day in court. First, force victims into federal court. Second, make sure there are so many judicial vacancies that plaintiffs have months and year long delays.
Senate Democrats are at least working to fix the second prong of the plan:
Five federal judicial nominees got a nomination hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a sign that Democrats will continue to push aggressively to reduce the historically high number of vacancies on the federal bench.
. . . . "President Obama is the first president in decades who ended his first term with more vacancies than when it began, and the first since Woodrow Wilson to complete a full first term without having a nominee to the D.C. Circuit confirmed," Leahy said in prepared remarks.
Source: Senate Democrats Moving Quickly on District Court Nominees - The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
One wonders of course what vacancies will pop up in the Supreme Court, and how Obama will fill them.