The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate courts, and covers only one district court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It meets at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, near Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C. The D.C. Circuit's prominence and prestige among American federal courts is second only to the U.S. Supreme Court because its geographic jurisdiction contains the U.S. Capitol and the headquarters of many of the U.S. federal government's executive departments and government agencies, and therefore it is the main federal appellate court for many issues of American administrative law and constitutional law. Four of the current nine justices on the Supreme Court were previously judges on the D.C. Circuit including Chief Justice John Roberts, along with associate justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Former justices Fred M. Vinson, Wiley Blount Rutledge, Warren E. Burger, Antonin Scalia, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also served as judges on the D.C. Circuit before their appointments to the Supreme Court. Because the D.C. Circuit does not represent any state, confirmation of nominees can be procedurally and practically easier than for nominees to the Courts of Appeals for the other geographical districts, as home-state senators have historically been able to hold up confirmation through the "blue slip" process. However, in recent years, several nominees to the D.C. Circuit were stalled, and some were ultimately not confirmed because senators claimed that the court had become larger than necessary to handle its caseload. From Wikipedia
