Judge Fred Slaughter – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

The son of former college basketball star and notable sports agent, Judge Fred Slaughter has made a name for himself in the Southern California legal field, and is now poised for confirmation to the Central District of California.

Background

Fred W. Slaughter got a B.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996, and a J.D. from U.C.L.A. School of Law in 1999. After graduating, Slaughter joined the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office as a Deputy City Attorney.

In 2002, Slaughter joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Central District of California as a federal prosecutor. In 2014, he was named by Gov. Jerry Brown to the Orange County Superior Court, where he currently serves.

History of the Seat

Slaughter has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, to a seat vacated on July 5, 2019, by Judge Andrew Guilford. The Trump Administration never made a nomination to fill this vacancy. Slaughter was nominated on December 15, 2021.

Legal Experience

Slaughter started his legal career as a Deputy City Attorney with the City of Los Angeles, where he led prosecutions against bandit taxi cab drivers, who operated without city licenses. See Tax Fraud, City News Service, Feb. 7, 2001.

While Slaughter held a number of legal positions throughout his career, the primary focus has been as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

As a federal prosecutor, Slaughter prosecuted Magdaleno Ramirez-Banuelos for transporting over 50 pounds of marijuana in a backpack. See Mexican Citizen Sentenced for Marijuana Related Felony, U.S. Fed News, May 14, 2004. He also prosecuted David Patrick Williams, a white supremacist, for providing a firearm to a felon. See Founding Member of White Supremacist Organization, European Kindred (EK) Gang, Pleaads [sic] Guilty in Federal Court to a Firearms Offense, States News Service, Aug. 10, 2009.

Jurisprudence

Since 2014, Slaughter has served as a judge on the Orange County Superior Court. In this role, Slaughter presides over trial court matters in criminal, civil, family, and other state law matters. Among the notable matters that he presided over as a judge, Slaughter found a juvenile defendant guilty of five counts of felony vandalism, by using average calculations of damage from the graffiti to be over $400 per count. See In re A.W., 39 Cal. App. 5th 941, 944 (2019). The California Court of Appeals reversed, finding that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the damage from each count was over the $400 threshold, and remanded, ordering Slaughter to find the juvenile guilty of misdemeanors instead of felonies. See id.

Overall Assessment

There is little in Slaughter’s background that should cause him issue during the confirmation process. As such, senators are likely to focus attention on other nominees and Slaughrer should be a relatively smooth confirmation.

126 Comments

  1. With a background of prosecution, progressives are likely not going to be thrilled about this nominee, but this seems like a reasonable nominee for Californians considering the heavy focus on nominating state judges.

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  3. On another note, I keep seeing Melissa Murray’s name included on the SCOTUS list of possibilities. I hope this raises her profile to get a nomination to a court of appeals, perhaps the DC circuit to replace whoever is selected. I think Manchin would vote for her.

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      • I don’t think it matters. You may not like Manchin (and I don’t), but TBF he’s been pretty clear about where his red lines are, both on legislation and judges. If you cross them, he will vote no. A lot of Democrats think they can change his mind, but mostly they can’t.

        Strongly pro-choice nominees are a red line for him. You’re not going to get his vote if you nominate one.

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      • I think there is a difference here between a candidate who is primarily concentrated within the field of abortion rights and a candidate who is active in supporting abortion rights but also has a more diverse background of experiences. That being said, I agree with Shawn that Murray will not be a judicial nominee under Biden.

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      • @Frank

        That’s what I largely meant, but Manchin has voted against every Obama nominee who had a substantial portion of their career in advancing the pro-choice movement. I don’t think Manchin would vote against a candidate who expresses pro-choice sympathies (he’s not Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz), but he will vote against someone if he sees them as someone openly advancing the pro-choice cause in their role as an attorney.

        Even Andrew Hurwitz, who as a clerk helped write a decision as a law clerk that was a precursor to Roe v Wade and then later published multiple articles defending that decision, got a no vote from Manchin despite having little else controversial about his record.

        Murray has done quite a bit of research on reproductive rights and advancing the pro-choice cause as a law professor. She seems like the kind of candidate that Manchin would vote no on. I’m not sure whether she would be acceptable to Murkowski and Collins.

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      • Ok, Melissa Murray is on MSNBC The 11th Hour right now. She just stated “I am honored to be one of the people being considered” when talking about the SCOTUS vacancy.

        I don’t think she will be the eventual nominee but between those comments, combined with the comment’s senator Manchin said last week regarding him being willing to vote for a nominee that is more liberal than him, I am increasing my odds of Murray being nominated to a federal judicial seat to over 50% now.

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      • “More liberal” than Manchin is a very broad spectrum. Almost every nominee that Biden has nominated has been more liberal than Manchin.

        But I suspect that there is a good reason why not a single attorney who has overtly advocated or represented pro-choice interest groups has been nominated. Not a single one. And that is likely because Senator Manchin has sent a clear message that crosses his red line. And you’ve already seen what Manchin has done when something crossed his clearly stated red line.

        I don’t know what the chances of Murray being nominated is, but I’m willing to say with just about 100% confidence that Joe Manchin would not vote for her. I think she should have been nominated for the 2nd Circuit, but to get her confirmed you will need Collins or Murkowski.

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    • I don’t think Murray is confirmable. Her podcast is at least as bad as Dale Ho’s tweets, maybe worse because it’s in audio form, plus she has no litigation experience, so she would get no GOP support, and the White House won’t want to put Manchin in the position of having to be the deciding vote on a nominee who is so outspoken on abortion.

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      • Even still, with Childs that would have only been four nominees. This is only the third hearing in the past 85 days. 4 nominees, even with one being a circuit court judge is unacceptable with the amount of nominees pending a hearing.

        Now if they had planned on having the 3 pending circuit court judges in this one hearing & Biden said he was considering all 3 so postpone them all, I could accept that. But this is not the case. Even still, there are other district court nominees that are pending a hearing. Mitch McConnell is probably laughing right now. No recess week hearings, only one hearing with more then 5 nominees, no hearings with more then two panels, waiting two weeks to put nominees on the executive calendar to vote on only to be held over & holding over nominees twice. He would have gotten rid of a chairman Grassley or Graham had they operated this poorly.

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  5. This would’ve been a great nomination … under Trump.

    The Trump White House Counsel’s office would’ve probably jumped at the chance to nominate an apolitical Black career prosecutor like Slaughter if Harris and Feinstein had recommended him to them.

    Nominations like this one makes me wonder what was the point of stonewalling the Trump adminstration if Senators end up recommending people to the Biden adminstration whom the Trump administration would’ve nominated too? It was just delaying justice.

    The same goes for the Senators from Washington and New Jersey. Murray and Cantwell refused to cooperate with the Trump adminstration on district judges which brought the Western District of Washington to a standstill. Yet with Trump out of office they recommend a state judge with deep ties to local Republicans and a career-AUSA who clerked for the arch-conservative Richard Tallman.

    The other ridiculous thing is that there was a Trump nominee to a California seat (who never got a hearing) who is probably the left of several of the California nominees during the Biden adminstration.

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    • Amen. I said just as much with some of these shitty nominees, that you could have gotten these nominees with Trump.
      Robert Menendez and Dianne Feinstein are the two worst senators in the Democratic caucus, even worse than Kyrsten Sinema when the political viewpoint of the state is taken into account. So I’m not that surprised that we got garbage from them.

      Washington state is harder to figure. We’ve gotten some amazing nominees there, and I don’t know why Estudillo was advanced to the White House when you had Obama nominee J. Michael Diaz, a very progressive AUSA and state judge.

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      • Correct, Washington state does use an independent commission to recommend federal judicial nominees. My issue is the senators are the ones that set the commission up so how in the world do you get anybody even close to a Republican to be recommended. Even if a right of center candidate is recommended, there should be multiple recommendations. There had to be at least a couple more progressive candidates recommended for the Tacoma seat that went to David Estudillo. It baffles me because the rest of the nominees from the state have been good to great.

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      • @Frank

        The independent commission is quite progressive. It’s why we have seen the kind of quality selections that have come from the Western District of Washington. And it is why I’m shocked that it sent up David Estudillo.

        This commission is likely far more progressive than it was in 2015-2016, and that commission sent up J. Michael Diaz. The only thing Diaz has done since is to serve as a state judge for 4 years, which strengthen his resume even more so.

        “The 10 members include Michele Storms, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington; Mika Kurose Rothman, a civil rights attorney and granddaughter of Japanese-American social justice advocate Aki Kurose; and Chach Duarte White, past president of the Latina/o Bar Association of Washington, who works with homeless and immigrant youth and foster children.

        Also included was Rion Ramirez, an attorney who heads the economic development arm of the Suquamish Tribe, and who is the first Native American to serve on a judicial selection panel in the state.”

        “The other members of the Western District’s judicial selection panel were Tom Hillier, who headed the Federal Public Defender’s Office in western Washington for 32 years; Sarah Jael Dion, who serves on the Board of QLaw, the LGBTQ Bar Association of Washington; former Seattle U.S. Attorney Brian Moran; Ian Warner, who served as a member of the monitoring team overseeing reforms at the Seattle Police Department before becoming senior director of public policy at Zillow; former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna; and longtime Seattle defense attorney John Wolfe.”

        https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-patty-murray-seattle-washington-maria-cantwell-cab5b94458c3c4ca0c47773fc35925bd

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      • @joshir73102

        Given the kind of judges that have been confirmed to the circuit courts, I think Tana Lin would have been confirmed just fine if she was paired with another progressive such as J. Michael Diaz. (Provided that they didn’t spend considerable time litigating for pro-choice causes.)

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      • Ah yes, that makes sense.
        The GOP makes these corporate Dem picks look a lot better than they actually are.

        I’ve been reading thru the comments trying to understand why Biden has trash picks like Estudillo, Rearden, Childs, O’Hearn, Huie, etc.

        Most of these trash picks I would vote to confirm anyway out of the need to fill seats, but the one nominee whom I would vote against no matter what is Rearden because she was involved in the impartial sham prosecution of environmentalist Steven Donziger.

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      • @joshir73102

        The trash picks that I give a grade of F to are ones I would have voted against in committee, on any discharge petition, on the filibuster, and on the final vote. They shouldn’t be on the bench period, and we are better off with an empty seat than those judges.

        And I put the blame on Biden. He should have told the senators that he refused to appoint those people.

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      • Similar to my reply below, I’m on the more pragmatic side and a nominee has to be quite bad for me to cast a no vote, especially if we might not have time to confirm a new nominee (and thus risk giving the GOP full leverage to fill the seat). Progressive senators like Bernie, Warren, & Markey understand this and they have voted for some of the trash picks (although I hope at least one of them votes against Rearden).

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      • “Progressive senators like Bernie, Warren, & Markey understand this and they have voted for some of the trash picks (although I hope at least one of them votes against Rearden).”

        And I’m really disappointed they did so, because Christine O’Hearn at the very least could have been defeated on the floor if progressives voted no. And it would have sent a message to Biden and other senators to not continue nominating judges like them.

        Bad judges are worse than an empty seat. I just fundamentally disagree with you on this matter.

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      • I did a little research on the four names mentioned;

        Deborah A. Ferguson (born around 1959) – Former US Assistant Attorney in both Illinois & Idaho.

        Wendy J. Olson (born 1964) – Former US attorney.

        Deanne Casperson (born around 1966) – Discrimination attorney.

        Keely Duke (born around 1974) – Trial attorney.

        The Idaho senators would probably sign off on any of the first three just based on age & none of the four seem to be overtly progressive. This would be one of those seats I wouldn’t rush to fill like Shawn & I wrote about the other day. The only good thing is Idaho will soon be removed as one of the last states to never have a woman federal judge.

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      • @Dequan

        Ferguson and Casperson are considerably more progressive than the other two. Ferguson is now a magistrate judge, has been a ACLU cooperating attorney and challenged the gay marriage ban in Idaho among other cases.
        Casperson is a plaintiffs attorney.

        I would probably go with Casperson if the Idaho senators are ok with her. If not, I would probably drag my feet on filling this seat.

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      • Oh I didn’t see that info about Ferguson but the ACLU affiliation would probably take her off the list for at least one of the Idaho senators, even though her she should make them want to recommend her. Yea I definitely agree no need to rush this nomination. If they want to play ball fine. If not hope to hold the senate, eliminate blue slips & nominate a Ferguson like women who was born about 20 years later then her… Lol

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      • I think the Idaho seat is urgent to fill. The Idaho court BADLY needs new judges and if we don’t fill the seat before the midterm and the Senate flips, either the court will be understaffed for years or Biden will be forced to pick a conservative just to deal with the judicial emergency.

        Winmill should have made his assumption of senior status contingent on the confirmation of his successor. Idaho now only has 1 active judge and 1 senior judge.

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      • @twelfthcircuit

        TBH, if the Idaho senators were to sign off on Ferguson based on that she is 60+ and would likely serve only the minimum 10 years, I’d probably take it. 10 years of her is probably better than most other alternatives.

        But if the choice is an empty seat vs a conservative or a O’Hearn/Rearden like attorney, I’ll rather let the seat remain empty.

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      • I think the Idaho senators will work in good faith to find an acceptable red state nominee by a Democrat president. They negotiated a fair minded judge to Obama & when Trump was elected, they recommended him again to Trump versus getting a younger, more conservative nominee. I trust them much more then I would when it comes to negotiating with senator Cruz or Hawley.

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  7. Today’s senate judiciary committee hearing was hard to watch. Only three nominees with all of the pending nominees awaiting a hearing were hard enough. But then you have senator Kennedy getting 2 of the 3 nominees courts they were appointed to wrong. Then senator Feinstein needing to ask all 3 of the nominees to speak up louder when they were talking at the same volume as they were to all other senators who had no issue hearing them.

    Both senators Cruz & Hawley framed their questioning to judge Kato very well. Whoever Biden’s nominee is will need to be able to combat them effectively. I think the backers for judge Childs were very wise to postpone her hearing today.

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  8. I think the reason there weren’t more nominees in this hearing is because it takes a couple of weeks after nominations are made for all the behind the scenes stuff to get done before you end up in front of the committee.
    As it stands, the folks today are among the last ones from the December batch and there is no one else afterwards for another week or so.
    I will say this, Biden needs to pick it up on nominations, especially for the court of appeals.
    There are 23 vacancies and we need to fill every one of them by the end of the year, because it will likely be our last chance to do so.

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      • As I’ve said before, I would join the GOP in calls for impeachment if Judge Childs is chosen for SCOTUS. And I probably would withhold my vote for Biden in 2024 even against Trump.

        BTW, your snark is uncalled for. I’d give him a grade of C on judges (dropped due to the nomination of Childs to the DC Circuit), but it would drop to F if Judge Childs is the SCOTUS nominee.

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      • That is GREAT news actually. Biden may only get one crack at it & I can assure you if Mitch had a 50/50 senate he wouldn’t be worried about bothering VP Pence to come down & make a tie breaking vote for a SCOTUS nominee. I truly am hoping for KBJ.

        While I do not agree with @Shawn that Childs is unqualified, I do agree she would be a terrible pick. Only the circuit court judges Biden has put on the bench so far or Melissa Murray (If Biden gets a promise from Manchin that he will vote for her prior) should be considered. Tiffany P. Cunningham really shouldn’t be considered so this should come down to the other four black women Biden has nominated & already has been confirmed. I’m fine with any of those four but KBJ should really be the nominee. She checks al of the boxes.

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      • I’m actually confident Biden did not make such a promise to Clyburn. Judge Tatel announced he will go senior status almost 11 months ago yet Biden nominated Childs in December. If he really wanted to set her up for the first SCOTUS vacancy (Which back in March some people thought would be last Summer, he would have nominated her to the DC circuit much sooner then December, probably no later then June.

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    • I wouldn’t say Childs is my first preference to replace Breyer, but that article – and the original analysis in Prospect – are a bit feeble. I’m not sure why Childs’ time in legal practice during the 1990s is more relevant to understanding her legal philosophy than her 11 years on the bench, where she’s been a fairly conventionally liberal judge.

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    • Here is a good expose on J. Michelle Childs’ record as a management attorney. It’s a lot worse than even I realized (and I knew that her background was quite bad).

      “Bloomberg Law has 25 cases registered in which Childs participated during her time at the firm; 23 of those involve alleged employment discrimination or other employment-related civil rights violations. Race and gender were common factors in such suits; seven such cases entailed race-based job discrimination, and another three involved sex-based job discrimination. In all but two registered instances, Childs was not representing the plaintiff but the defendant, meaning that she overwhelmingly represented employers accused of violating civil rights and gender discrimination laws in the workplace.”

      “Appointing a Black woman with a history of defending employers against discrimination cases brought under the Civil Rights Act would certainly undermine the message Biden has sought to convey with this nomination, and make for a confusing capstone to the administration’s judicial project. And with other Black women available who do not have anything close to this record, it would be especially puzzling.”

      https://prospect.org/justice/clyburn-pushes-management-side-labor-attorney-for-supreme-court/

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      • WOW… That is a LOT worse then even I thought. She is getting near Christine O’Hearn territory. @Shawn & I have disagreed in the past about what disqualifies a Biden nominee but I think with everything else that has been said about judge Childs, this really should disqualify her. This is truly damming & Biden should tell Clyburn he will absolutely keep his promise to nominate the first black woman but Childsd can’t be that woman.

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      • @Dequan

        So I knew about some of this from Childs’ SJC questionnaire, but I didn’t know the full details of how bad it was. And I will say it again, as bad as O’Hearn or Rearden are, they are district court judges.

        Appointing Childs to the DC Circuit or SCOTUS is much much worse. Jim Clyburn has done an awful lot of good for this country, but shame on him for trying to push this horrible and yes unqualified candidate on Biden under the guise that Childs was “anti-elitist”.

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      • I posted a reply elsewhere regarding this article, but it hasn’t come up for some reason.

        I really feel that the Prospect article is getting badly over-egged. Alex Sammon is a professional Biden-basher and his analysis reeks of an attempt to find some angle to knock Biden from. I don’t think Childs’ time in private practice back in the 1990s is of greater importance than her 11 years as a federal judge, where she’s been a reliably liberal vote as far as I can tell.

        (I do think, by-the-by, that it is deeply dishonest of Sammon to claim that Childs has ‘a track record’ of anti-worker decisions when he can only cite one case, which he doesn’t link to, and without giving any information about the details of the claim).

        @Shawn I appreciate you feel strongly about this and I wouldn’t say Childs is my first preference for SCOTUS or the DC Circuit – I prefer Kruger on balance – but it’s deeply unfair to call Childs unqualified. She has a perfectly respectable academic background and is one of America’s leading experts on employment law. She’s more than intellectually capable of holding her own on an appellate court or the Supreme Court.

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      • You make interesting points about Childs’ record in private practice. She also worked in the South Carolina Labor Department and the state Workman Compensation Board under an elected Democratic Governor. How was her record in those positions?

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      • @Mitch

        I don’t know about her record in the SC Dept of Labor or the Worker’s Comp Commission.
        But the Governor that appointed her was a pretty conservative Democrat, Jim Hodges. Most elected Southern Democrats in so-called right-to-work 20 years ago were quite conservative on employment/labor issues, (to the point that quite a few Northern Republicans were less conservative than them.) Someone like Hodges makes Joe Manchin seem like a progressive in comparison (Although Manchin comes from a state with a union tradition).

        Southern Democrats have moved considerably to the left on labor and other issues in the past 2 decades, but even so, there weren’t enough votes to repeal right-to-work in Virginia. 20 years ago your average statewide Dem candidate was pretty close to Joe Manchin, today they are closer to Stacey Abrams. NC Gov Roy Cooper is a great example of this; when he first was elected to statewide office it was as a conservative Democrat, today is pretty much in step with national Democrat. It is possible that Childs also has changed with the times as well, but there is no evidence of that.

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  10. This is why Democrats have to move as fast as they possibly can on nominations:

    Democratic Senator Suffers a Stroke
    February 1, 2022 at 4:32 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 2 Comments

    Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) suffered a stroke last week and underwent surgery but is “expected to make a full recovery,” the Washington Post reports.

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    • My heart skips a beat every time a Democrat senator has any health condition. First it was senator Leahy in a state with a Republican governor. Each senator since has been in a state with a Democrat governor. We have no room for error or all of these recesses.

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      • The person whom I blame most for the current predicament is Cal Cunningham of North Carolina. If he had kept his Johnson in his pants in 2020 or had been more discreet about it, he gets elected to the Senate (and Cheri Beasley is the NC SC Chief Justice as well). Senator Tillis’ campaign manager said that he’s certain that Tillis would have lost without that scandal. Even as it was, Cunningham did better than Biden in rural North Carolina, but just tanked among urban/suburban women.

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      • That’s an extremely good point @Shawn. Had Cal Cunningham just (To coin a phrase written earlier today) done no harm we would only have to worry about convincing one of senators Manchin or Sinema & the Dems would have the majority in the SJC so we wouldn’t have to waste time on discharge votes.

        And we probably would have federal judges like Melissa Murray & other open pro-abortion judges nominated. I really was banking on the NC flip even more so then both Georgia races.

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  11. SJC added a committee hearing for next week but no nomination hearing so far. Skipping another week of nominations would be awful. The news about Senator Lújan are terrible as well. I hope he recovers quickly.

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    • Well I’m happy we got an additional circuit court nominee but I sure wish we had additional nominees to go with it, even if other district court nominees. President Biden has now nominated more African American women (9) in his one term then every other president combined. This is a good nominee but I would have rather a nominee younger then 54 years old. But it is replacing a Bush appointee (Albeit she’s a Democrat that was part of a package deal) so I guess it’s an improvement.

      I would have rather seen Fadwa Hammoud be nominated. She’s much younger & would have been the first Muslim circuit court judge. But congrats to judge Davis.

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    • Yes I wish he had filled this and the Cole vacancy on the 6th at the same time (or one of the 7th Circuit vacancies). We’re running out of time to be nominating 1 judge at a time, especially if it’s going to take another month to get another round of Circuit court nominations…The Kansas vacancy on the 10th has been open for almost a year now!

      Agreed with the above – at 54, Judge Davis is a little older than what I would’ve hoped for, though perhaps they’re hoping her confirmation will be smoother since Trump appointed her (as the Democratic pick in a package deal, but still…). She was also a former AUSA and worked in private practice, so she doesn’t have much of a progressive background for a state with 2 Dem senators. First Black woman from Michigan is still something though.

      Also slightly disappointed that he didn’t nominate Fadwa Hammoud as the first Muslim appeals court judge – it would’ve made sense in Michigan in particular given the large Arab-American population in Dearborn. The Sixth has never had a non-white or non-Black so this would’ve been a good moment to make history, and this choice feels very conventional for an administration that has been willing to think outside the box.

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    • Not a bad pick, for sure, but there would have been better and, importantly, younger candidates, especially in a state with two blue senators. This would have been a seat to fill with a young progressive academic (e.g. Leah Litman). Still, I am glad the President keeps filling the pipeline despite the SCOTUS nomination glimmering on the horizon.

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    • I give this nominee a C. Davis was a chapter leader for the American Constitution Society, so she is at the progressive end of the traditional type of nominee.

      I also wonder whether the admin expects Judge Eric Clay to retire, or if they plan on nominating someone who isn’t black for the Guy Cole seat. There is an absolutely excellent candidate for this seat, Rachel Bloomekatz, who was also Senator Sherrod Brown’s campaign counsel.

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      • Rachel Bloomekatz is absolutely my first choice for any Ohio seat but I suspect Biden will work well with senator Portman despite no blue slips for circuit court seats because he has worked in good faith on everything from the infrastructure deal to the district court seats that o have blue slips.

        Michael Meuti would be another good name but I would probably expect a nominee closer to Benjamin Glassman as a compromise.

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      • @Dequan

        I don’t think Portman gets much of a say in this. Sherrod Brown strongly opposed the two Ohio nominees to the 6th Circuit (including one hideous guy who suggested Trump unilaterally repeal Obamacare), so I expect that the same thing that happened in PA (Toomey supported impeachment and infrastructure as well).

        Portman will be consulted for sure, but like Toomey his “input will be rejected” if he says no to Bloomekatz. I’m not a fan of political patronage, but I think it’s very possible that Brown pushes for Bloomekatz. Although in this case it is for someone who very much is a highly qualified candidate.

        Michael Meuti is also an excellent candidate (and I wish Brown had pushed for him for a district court nominee).

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      • @shawn

        I truly hope that is the approach. But as long as we don’t settle too much I am ok. Bloomekatz is my first choice but if Biden gives Portman 5 names & he is ok with one of the 5, I would be fine with that deal as long as all 5 are young & progressive. Benjamin Glassman would not be in my top 5 choices. He would be an acceptable district court nominee for me since blue slips are in play still there.

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      • @Dequan

        Hell no I’m absolutely not ok with that deal or giving Portman any real say in the nomination. Sherrod Brown didn’t get a chance to reject Chad Readler, who was one of Trump’s worst nominees (to the point that Joe Manchin strongly opposed him). Biden should tell Portman that he can interview Bloomekatz and see what he thinks, but if Portman says no, then his “input is rejected”.

        I think Portman should be treated the same as Toomey, because Trump ignored the viewpoints of Brown and Casey.

        Liked by 1 person

      • @Shawn

        I don’t think Portman & Toomey are in the same category (And I suspect Biden doesn’t either). Toomey I would give zero input to for the very reasons you mentioned. I would treat him just as the Tennessee senators were treated, an email of who I want, a customary phone call & maybe follow up phone call. Toomey has not worked with Biden in any real way so you lose nothing by ignoring him just like the Tennessee senators.

        Portman on the other hand had worked with Biden. I would venture to same almost, if not even more then senator Graham. When Biden needed a win on the infrastructure package not only did Portman vote for it but he even showed up at the signing ceremony. When there were three district court vacancies he not only worked in good faith to fill the seats, but we even got 1 really progressive nominee (Albeit he was born in 1962) & another decent to good nominee. Even the worst nominee was better then some nominees from states with two Democrat senators.

        So if I was advising Biden I would tell him to play ball with Portman but not give him veto power. I think a list of 5 with the worst of the 5 still being young & progressive is still the way to go. I suspect Portman would agree to one of the five. I would reserve your strategy for most other purple & red states however.

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      • @Dequan

        Graham has voted for most of Biden’s nominees, both in committee and on the floor. So there is real value in giving him considerable say because he behaved in good faith with even progressive judicial nominees.

        Portman has voted against most if not almost all of Biden’s nominees. He voted no on even the most conservative Biden nominees like David Estudillo! And he greenlighted two horrible nominees under Trump.
        And the district court nominees from Ohio were all suboptimal.
        Sherrod Brown worked with Trump on trade, that didn’t give him special privileges on judicial nominees. I think Brown should object strongly if his selection(s) for the 6th Circuit are not taken as is.

        So no I strongly hold by my opinion that Portman should absolutely get the Toomey treatment for circuit court judges. I would make an effort to sell him on Rachel Bloomekatz, and if he won’t go for it, then you go the Toomey path. Giving considerable say in the nominees should be limited to those who have regularly voted for Biden’s judicial nominees.

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      • Don’t get me wrong, I would strongly try to push for Rachel Bloomekatz as well. But we definitely disagree if your saying she is the only person I would nominate for a Ohio seat. I don’t see that as being a good long term strategy in a 50/50 senate where Portman is one of the few senators you can possibly get a yes vote from, maybe even the SCOTUS pick, just to have a bi-partisan vote.

        But even with my disagreement, I would say my fifth choice would not be much less progressive then her anyway… Lol

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      • @Dequan

        I’m not saying Bloomekatz is the only good nominee. What I’m saying instead is that Portman should have ZERO meaningful say in who this nominee is. He should get the same say that Brown did for Chad Readler. After seeing how Toomey was treated, I strongly believe that the same will be done with Portman.

        And I have no use for supposed claims of bipartisanshit when it wasn’t practiced during the Trump admin and especially for a senator like Portman who regularly votes against Biden’s nominees. Given his record, I’m pretty sure he would vote against any Biden Supreme Court nominee, even Childs. So frankly, I do not think there is any value in even consulting with Portman, let alone getting his approval.

        I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament.

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  13. The big question for me at this stage is where is O. Rogeriee Thompson’s replacement? Whitehouse has no excuse for foot-dragging here, given that he’s on the SJC and Reed isn’t normally a slouch either, to the best of my knowledge. Not only is it needlessly delaying a necessary confirmation, but it’s probably deterring Sandra Lynch from announcing her retirement (not sure how inclined Keyatta is to step down at this point).

    Dishonourable mentions too to Markey and Warren for the slow pace of recommendations for the Massachusetts District.

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  14. 55 years is a little too old for me. But it seems the Biden adminstration has a criteria for who they want to nominate to appellate judgeships at this moment and Davis checks the two most important boxes. The way they are going it wouldn’t shock me if Jackie Lacy is the next nominee to a California seat on the 9th Circuit.

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      • Jackie Lacey won’t be picked for the Circuit. I don’t know if she’s interested. She could be picked for District Judge, but even that would surprise me. She was defeated in 2020 as DA by a solid margin, but many voters are having buyers’ remorse.

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      • Bringing up Jackie Lacey in this context reminds me of Bill Clinton bringing up Jesse Jackson (winning in 1988) in the 2008 South Carolina primary.

        Especially when this poster suggested that “Davis checks the two most important boxes.” I don’t think Jackie Lacey was the important piece here. The message was something different.

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    • Jackie Lacey won’t be nominated under any circumstance. She is completely unqualified for the 9th Circ.

      Davis is too old and was largely a AUSA. That’s bad. She also was the chapter leader for the American Constitution Society (the progressive version of the Federalist Society) in Detroit and was nominated by the Michigan senators.

      I give this nomination a C.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Finally something @Shawn & I agree in 100%… Lol

        I also give Davis a C although he age favors in my grade heavily.

        As for Ben Mizer, he was one of my other back up nominees I was talking about along with Grossman. He would not be in my top 5 package I would send to Portman however.

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    • “But it seems the Biden adminstration has a criteria for who they want to nominate to appellate judgeships at this moment and Davis checks the two most important boxes.”

      It did not hit me initially, but if this means what I think it means, this is a really ugly comment. Would you like to elaborate?

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  15. I think Ben Mizer could be the OH nominee. He set his social media to private which was the same thing Toby Heytens and Dale Ho did when they were being vetted.

    He was also the Acting Civil chief at the DOJ at the tail end of the Obama administration. He’d be the first gay male appellate court judge appointed by a Democrat. I think Bumatay was the first (?).

    Ohio also has a rather large state Court of Appeals and because judges are elected from districts there are a lot of Democrats on that court. The administration might pick one of them.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ben Mizer is on my list of decent and likely nominees from Ohio, but I downgrade him for joining a Big Law firm after leaving the Obama admin. Not much though since it seems that he has done a lot of pro bono and most of his work is not fighting plaintiffs.
      Laurel Beatty Blunt would be the most likely choice from the Court of Appeals.

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      • Here are five examples of recommendations for Ohio that I would give to Portman with their approximate ages. If he couldn’t agree to any I would just nominate Rachel;

        Rachel Bloomekatz (1982)

        Amy Gilbert (1987) – Staff Attorney at ACLU of Ohio

        Mark A. Godsey Ohio Innoence Project & also prosecuted the mob. I couldn’t find his graduation dates or age but looks to be high 40’s to ow 50’s from his pictures.

        Michael Meuti (1978) – Former American Constitution Society leader.

        Ebunoluwa Taiwo (1981) – Consumer Protection Bureau.

        Liked by 1 person

      • @Dequan

        Mark Godsey was born around 1968, which makes him 53. I’m not sure that Gilbert has enough appellate experience (if she does she’s fantastic), and Taiwo spent two years at the CPB, 6 years at Big Law, and the last 4 years as an AUSA.

        But Portman’s reaction to this would be probably none of the above. All of them are liberal activists. He’ll also waste considerable time to tell you that saying he will “need to do his research” on these options. What then?

        I just don’t think there is ANY value in meaningful consultations with a senator that couldn’t even vote for David Estudillo.
        There may be some nominees that Portman would accept (older and far less progressive), but they won’t even get a grade of C. I’m not sure he would accept state court judges Laurel Beatty Blunt or Candace Crouse either.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Yea I don’t doubt Portman would try to waste time. I believe if Biden took my approach I would just give him at most two months then if he can’t agree to any of the recommendations I would then give him the Tennessee treatment & thank him for his input. By then the supreme court vote will be over & most ambassadors, US attorney’s & other non judicial nominees should be confirmed by then. I am hoping by April the senate can mostly focus on judicial nominees so the process can move even faster.

        If Mark Godsey was born around 1968 that of course makes him older then I would want for a circuit court nominee, but he is good enough if Portman bites & agrees quickly. But I threw those five names out assuming Portman would say no to all then you just go with Rachel.

        On another note, I am getting a little afraid. It’s Wednesday & there is still no notification from the home page of the senate judiciary committee that there will be a hearing next Wednesday. They usually announce a week prior & they never have a hearing on a Thursday so that will be another week with no hearing. And that’s after just THREE nominees this week. The SJC is really getting behind if there is no nomination hearing next week. There are currently 16 nominees awaiting a hearing. It would really be unacceptable to not have a hearing next week, especially with an entire week next month that will be focused on the SCOTUS nominee.

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      • @Dequan

        As I’ve said before, I think the biggest mistake Biden did with judges was not appointing a special White House committee for circuit court judges with Russ Feingold as the chairman. Then all applications could be sent directly to that commission and then forwarded to the White House. The consultation with senators can take place after the commission provides a list of names. This would also get rid of some of the political patronage associated with these nominees.

        I’m tired of senators not doing their job and taking long vacation. This isn’t just limited to the SJC. If you can’t do the job, resign. But the Supreme Court nominee should only take a week for the hearings, and a couple of sessions for votes. And the SJC should double bunk SCOTUS votes and lower court hearings

        Liked by 1 person

      • @Shawn

        From your lips to God’s ears. I’m afraid if we are already getting behind now, the supreme court hearing will completely take the Dems off the path without better coordination. Throw in senator Lujan’s heart attack & it does bold well for the next couple months.

        But the SJC only having hearings for SIX nominees in the past 48 days is unacceptable in my opinion. No hearing next week is completely inexcusable, especially with a SCOTUS nominee taking up a week next month.

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  16. Does anybody have news on Judge Michael J. Juneau retiring from the Western district of Louisiana yesterday? He was a Trump appointee & only 59 years old so that would be great news if he did but just making sure I am not reading incorrectly.

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