Barack Obama's presidency and his party's dominance in Congress could mean sweeping changes to the federal court system, which handles thousands of cases annually on issues ranging from civil rights to securities and banking regulation.
And the most drastic changes are likely to come in the nation's most conservative appeals court - the 4th Circuit, which oversees cases from Maryland and four other Mid-Atlantic states. Republican nominees hold a narrow 6-5 edge on the Richmond-based court, but there are already four vacancies and several others could open up during Obama's term.
Such change could have broad impact on national policy, considering the types of cases this circuit handles: those dealing with the war on terror and the many government agencies situated in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. The court also decides cases from West Virginia and the Carolinas.
"This is the circuit where Obama will have the fastest chance to have the greatest impact," Shapiro said.
Obama's impact on the federal courts in Maryland will be far-reaching, especially if he wins a second term, scholars said. By January 2016, all of the state's sitting U.S. District judges will become eligible for senior status - a sort of active retirement that requires them to vacate their seats if they accept it. One of the district judges, Peter J. Messitte, took senior status in September, leaving nine on the bench.
And Obama's administration is likely to remove U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, who was appointed by George W. Bush, despite his widely praised record.
"That's the way the system works," said Stephen Sachs, a former Maryland U.S. attorney and state attorney general. New administrations typically come in and clean house, he said.
It happened to Sachs when Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, and he expects it to happen to again next year. Rosenstein's four-year term ends in July, and while he told The Baltimore Sun that he's not looking for a new job, others in the legal community say offers have been pouring in.
Sachs has heard a handful of names being bandied about as possible U.S. attorney nominees, including Stuart O. Simms, who ran for Maryland attorney general in 2006, and former assistant U.S. Attorneys Gregg L. Bernstein and W. Warren Hamel, Sachs' personal favorite.
