NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) - The freeze in judicial nominations may finally be thawing.

Judicial choices and confirmations have been moving at a glacial pace during the Obama administration, thanks in part to other priorities (think health care legislation) and two time-consuming Supreme Court nominations.

There currently are about 90 federal court vacancies -- higher than the average number of vacancies during the Bush administration. Some federal court benches have had empty seats for more than three years. The Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan and suburban White Plains, has eight vacancies -- the highest number of vacancies on that court since the early 1990s.

But recent indicators suggest the backlog may be diminishing.

In the first five months of the year, Obama has sent 36 new district and appellate court nominees to the Senate, compared with a total of 103 in his previous two years in office, according to Senate Judiciary Committee statistics. Last week, Obama nominated James Gilstrap, an attorney in private practice and a former Texas county judge, to fill a vacancy in the Eastern District of Texas. Also this month, Obama nominated three to fill vacancies in the Southern District of New York: Edgardo Ramos, Katherine Forrest and Andrew Carter.

There has also been halting movement on judges in the Senate. In the first two years of the Obama administration, the Senate approved just 60 appellate and district court nominees -- the lowest number in 35 years -- and took far longer to consider Obama appointees than Bush appointees, according to Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So far this year, the Senate has confirmed 24 appellate and district court judges, versus a scant 13 by this time last year. On May 17, the Senate voted to confirm Susan Carney to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals; her nomination had been pending for nearly a year.

What's more, this month, the full Senate took action on three of the president's most controversial and long-standing nominees. In close votes, it approved the nomination of Edward Chen to a trial court in California and John McConnell to the bench in Rhode Island, but effectively blocked the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

IT'S PLAIN POLITICS

Some of these delays are a reflection of the unusually contentious relations between Republicans and Democrats under the Obama administration. Even under the best conditions, Senate convention does not make it hospitable for confirmation votes. Senators must agree unanimously to bring a vote on a candidate to the floor, meaning any one Senator can hold up a nomination. At a time when legislators will go to the mat over the smallest of differences, it hasn't taken much to hold up a judicial candidate.

Take the case of Albert Diaz, who was nominated to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in November 2009. Diaz, from North Carolina, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary committee in January 2010. When Democratic Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina approached the Senate floor to ask for a vote in July 2010, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky objected. He didn't point to a flaw in Diaz's record; rather, he gave a speech about Democratic hold-ups of nominees during the Bush administration. Diaz's nomination didn't go to the floor that day. He was confirmed five months later.

"It's plain politics," said Sheldon Goldman, a political science professor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who studies the federal courts. Even non-controversial candidates who are eventually confirmed unanimously by the Senate are held up for months, said Goldman. "It's very dysfunctional for the judiciary."

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS WEIGHS IN

In his most recent annual report on the state of the judiciary, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts referred to "the persistent problem of judicial vacancies in critically overworked districts."

"Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political forms," Roberts wrote. "This has created acute difficulties for some judicial districts."

Few districts have been as affected by the backlog as the Western District of New York, which covers courts in Buffalo and Rochester.

The district ranks seventh in the nation and first in its circuit in terms of weighted filings per judge, a metric used by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts to measure the complexity of court filings. It is also first in its circuit and tenth in the country in terms of total filings per judge, a ballooning caseload that Chief Judge William Skretny says is owed to a mix of environmental litigation, complex business disputes and cases stemming from plant closings and the economic downturn.

Skretny said the district's situation is dire because it has only four authorized full-time judgeships, so one vacancy has a lopsided effect.

"It's devastating for a district of this size to be disadvantaged this long," Skretny told Reuters. (The governing body of federal judges has been asking for Congress to create another permanent judgeship in the district for more than 15 years).

Skretny said he or other court employees check weekly to see whether Michael Green, a district attorney for Monroe County in New York who was nominated in January, will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. He had a hearing at the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, but is still awaiting a committee vote.

"It's very difficult to efficiently handle the cases that would get an adrenaline shot in the arm, so to speak, with a new judge," Skretny said.

Skretny said the district has come up with new ways to address case backlogs, such as assigning a senior judge to handle social security disputes and habeas corpus cases, and having magistrate judges handle backlogged prisoners' rights cases and employment discrimination and retirement cases.

The Senate may not have long to act on Green's, and others' nominations. President Obama's timeline to clear up the backlog may be limited as the country heads into the contentious election season, when judicial nominations become more toxic and Congress is generally less productive, said Elliot Slotnick, a political science professor at Ohio State University.

"If it's going to be a priority it's got to be one now, because the curtain will go down soon," he said. "He's got about a year at this point to get some judges through."

(Reporting by Carlyn Kolker)