Although most court-watchers’ eyes are fixed on the Supreme Court, it remains prudent to pay attention to the lower courts, too. Law professor Carl Tobias, writing at the National Law Journal, sees two vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and he wants Obama to fill them pronto.

A president needs no excuse to appoint more judges to the federal appellate courts. Judicial appointments are the president’s prerogative — and one of the most prized spoils of electoral victory.  But Tobias goes one step further: He argues that the president should appoint more D.C. Circuit judges, not merely as a matter of presidential discretion but as an absolute necessity in light of what Tobias sees as urgent circumstances. He urges the president to nominate two more judges to that court, and that the Senate must “promptly confirm” his nominees, or risk “imped[ing] speedy, inexpensive, and equitable disposition” of the court’s docketed cases.