Barring the unexpected, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be confirmed to the Supreme Court this week, capping a ten week nomination and confirmation process since Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement in late January. While the Administration would likely take a (deserved) victory lap over Jackson’s confirmation, the most crucial period for securing Biden’s judicial legacy begins after.
While the Biden Administration came into office with comparatively few judicial vacancies to fill, a rash of Democratic appointees moving to senior status has created an opportunity for the Administration to leave a substantial imprint on the lower courts. Jackson’s confirmation will leave 24 lower court nominees left before the Senate, while pales in comparison to the 108 pending judicial vacancies listed on the U.S. Courts website. The situation is even more significant, given that many confirmed vacancies, including those by Third Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro, Ninth Circuit Judges Andew Hurwitz, Margaret McKeown, and Sidney Runyan Thomas, and D.D.C. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, are not public on the site yet. As such, the administration has around 90 vacancies on the federal bench with no nominees pending. Given that, fourteen months into his Presidency, Biden has yet to send 90 judicial nominees to the Senate, the Administration will have to move fast to have any hope of filling a substantial number of these vacancies.
Consider that the Administration has failed to name a single lower court judge to the bench since Judge Stephanie Davis was tapped two months ago. This is likely because the White House is strategically choosing to hold lower court nominations, including those that may be controversial, in order to avoid muddying the waters for Jackson. This means that the Biden Administration’s 82 nominees submitted to the Senate so far are slightly lower than the 98 judges nominated by President Bush and the 87 nominated by President Trump. Biden is particularly behind on circuit court nominations, having nominated 20, while Trump had made 25 as of this point in his Presidency, while President Bush had nominated 31. Even President Obama, rightfully criticized for a slow pace on nominations, had named 18 appellate nominees by April 1 of the second year of his presidency. With the Senate having confirmed 15 judges, only five of the 24 appellate vacancies currently pending have a nominee.
On the confirmation side, the Biden Administration has run far ahead of its immediate predecessors. For example, the Biden Administration has seen 58 judges confirmed so far, and the Trump Administration only saw 29 judges at this point in its Presidency, while the Obama Administration only saw 19. However, both prior Administrations had run behind their predecessors. Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, for example, had seen 45-50 judges confirmed by this point in their Presidency, just slightly behind the Biden Administration.
However, on average, a judicial nominee in the Biden Administration has taken 4 months from nomination to confirmation. This means that, in order to be confirmed before the August recess (after which many Democratic senators may be absent campaigning in their home states), nominees need to be sent to the Senate now. Additionally, any nominees sent will likely also run into the limited space in Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which typically occur every two weeks and include 4-6 nominees each. All this makes the next month or two crucial for nominations. Any nominee nominated later than early May may not see confirmation this year.
To be fair, none of this to say that the Biden administration hasn’t had a significant impact on the federal judiciary. One could argue that, given the bare majority they control, Democrats have outperformed expectations. However, the Administration now faces both an opportunity and a ticking clock. Due to a large number of judges moving to senior status, Biden could easily outperform the 30 judges that Trump was able to confirm to the courts of appeals in his first two years. However, for the Biden Administration to cement its judicial legacy, it will need to urgently snap back onto the lower courts. The first step might be if large batch of nominees, including 5-6 appellate picks, hits the Senate after the Jackson confirmation this week.
The Vetting Room 
CNN article today on judicial nominations:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/04/politics/biden-lower-court-nominations/index.html
This line stuck out for me:
“There are currently five Biden judicial nominees that failed to get GOP support in the committee and will need discharge petitions to be confirmed. It is unclear whether Democrats have the votes to do so at this point”
Sooo which senator(s) have come out against these nominees?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/04/politics/biden-lower-court-nominations/index.html
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The following needs to occur for there to be any chance at every current circuit court & district court seat in a blue state to be filled before the end of the year…
1. President Biden needs to release a large batch of nominees by the end of this week. The announcement needs to include at least a handful of circuit court & at least a dozen district court nominees.
2. Chairman Durbin needs to hold a hearing once a week for every week the senate is in session over the following two month period after the Eater recess. If not, then he should hold at least one nomination hearing during a recess week just as the Republicans did. He also needs to make sure each hearing has at least 5 nominees but preferably increase some hearings to 7 nominees.
3. Majority leader Schumer needs to hold the senate in session some Fridays & even a Saturday or two. Also once a month on a Friday he should hold the senate in session solely to vote on any discharge votes for nominees that received a tie vote from committee. And the easiest thing that needs to be done is vote for cloture on any circuit court nominee before the end of any week so that their confirmation can be voted on the following Monday.
This really shouldn’t be this hard. Mitch McConnell said leave no vacancy behind & when he was majority leader there was a point in which every circuit court seat was filled. That will not happen under this administration & senate leadership but sadly with a little coordination it could have.
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This is an excellent article just this morning about judicial nominations:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/04/politics/biden-lower-court-nominations/index.html
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Excellent article. I too fear Republican maneuvers that will delay judicial confirmations even more as the midterms get closer.
The article said “ The Judiciary Committee aide told CNN that the committee aims to hold nomination hearings every other week that the Senate is in session”. That may not be enough if they stick to 5 or 6 nominees at most per hearing. Why they can only hold hearings while the senate is in session while Republicans had hearings during recess weeks is beyond me.
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It’s the back-patting for me, like WH and senate Dems are congratulating themselves are doing an OK job.
“This is likely because the White House is strategically choosing to hold lower court nominations, including those that may be controversial, in order to avoid muddying the waters for Jackson.”
I simply cannot abide this deeply flawed Democratic thinking. The idea that Dems just need to be a little extra nicer to Republicans for them to behave. Like any GOPers are waiting to see who else Biden nominees to decide whether or not to vote for KBJ.
Think about it: Do you see Thune, or Sullivan, or Fischer, or any of the Scotts saying: “You know, I’d support KBJ, but just can’t because look at all these other nominees Biden just sent to the senate. because of that, I’m a no on KBJ.” Ridiculous.
Some of us have been saying this for at least three weeks now: THIS BETTER BE THE WEEK WITH A BIG BATCH OF NOMINEES. What if it isn’t? What if we still won’t have a Kansas 10th Circuit nominee? What if we don’t get a Louisiana 5th Circuit nominee? To say nothing of a Texas 5th Circuit replacement for Costa, since that it relatively “recent.” But yeah, what if there’s no nominees this week or none of the above nominees? Will it be time to charge this administration with incompetence and judicial neglect?
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@Gavi
I couldn’t have said it any better. Not having nominees to announce is bad, but having nominees & just not announcing them because your holding them back until after KBJ is confirmed would be near an impeachable offense. How in the Hell is that a strategy. I will give The White House more credit then that & just assume what we have been saying for the past couple months, which is the SCOTUS vacancy has just slowed them down & they can’t walk & chew gum at the same time. That’s bad, but the latter option mentioned would be way worse.
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In theory it removes a set of possible Republican questions asking if she would be like judges that Biden had just nominated? I do find that line of thinking to be hard to understand though. In addition, I think it was only a couple of times when the Republicans had a hearing during a recess week when they were in power. Some of you make it sound like it happened often.
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The issue is even if Republicans held a hearing three times during recess weeks, if Democrats do it ZERO, your still behind on a dozen to 15 nominees. That’s a lot of judges. We should be at the very easy matching, if not exceeding what Republicans did.
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The Texas 5th circuit seat is more important because Costa actually has a set resignation date while Dennis could stay on the court indefinitely.
And yes I could see the GOP no vote on KBJ as a “protest of Biden nominees in general”, but that was decided long ago. If this were April 2021, I could see the GOP waiting to see who else is nominated to decide on KBJ, but it’s April 2022, and their pattern of voting no on Biden’s judicial nominees makes their vote on KBJ clear.
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It’s too bad that this is not a neutral and impartial blog.
Ketanji Brown is not qualified to be a supreme court justice because she views every single issue through the lens of her race.
Also, her infamous comment that she doesn’t know what a woman is because she is not a biologist is ludicrous in ways that most people have not observed. A biologist does not define men and women, A biologist defines male versus female. An anthropologist or a sociologist defines man and woman. So if Ketanji Brown doesn’t even know the difference between a woman and a female, or the difference between a biologist and an anthropologist, this this country really is in trouble!
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@Genny L
All comments & sides of the political aisle are welcome on the blog from what I’ve seen. Certainly the majority of the comments are in favor of progressive judges but I for one enjoy comments from across the political spectrum.
Now as for your comments I can’t say I personally agree with you. For one, KBJ actually has more experience then 4 sitting SCOTUS justices had when they were nominated. And as for the question on what is a woman, I believe she just didn’t want to answer questions that could be litigated in front of the court. But if you watch d the entire 4 days of her hearing as I did, I believer you would find her answering questions in depth when she could.
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Agree with Dequan on both points (and I am probably more moderate than most posters here). Also, similar attacks were lodged regarding the evasiveness of Trump SCOTUS nominees, and like with Jackson I thought nothing less of them that they chose not to answer questions which might be litigated in the future.
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Damn these senators and their last minute travel plans!
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I figured Freeman would be an 11-11 vote..
Jennifer Rearden cleared with a 22-0 vote….
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Believe that is the first judge that Cruz and Hawley have voted in favor for in this Congress.
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Did anyone else catch Ben Sasse voting on Jennifer Reardon in the SJC? He had to ask his aide how to vote. I’m sure he’s not the only senator who rely on their aides to remind how to vote but this is the first time I have actually seen it with my own two eyes.
At the 6:45:17 mark (after Cruz): https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/03/28/2022/executive-business-meeting
Of course the Republicans would ALL find this nominee acceptable for all of them to support.
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Ok, I am one that can admit when I was wrong. I really thought at least one GOP senator would vote AYE or at least pass.
In other news no surprise on the tie vote for Freeman . Schumer really needs to ge t to work on those as they are some of the best pending nominees for obvious reasons. A unanimous vote on Reardon shows what a lot of us have been saying which is she is one of the worse picks Biden has had to date. I still put O’Hearn & Childs as worse then her however.
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Schumer already filed the discharge motion for KBJ…
I assume rules prevent him from doing more that one discharge at a time, as we now have 6 lower court nominees to discharge…And since all 50 Democrats are in, this week presents a golden opportunity to clear the calendar…
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Per the rules, each calendar item (nomination) requires 4 hours of debate. These 4 hours can occur sequentially but not simultaneously.
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32 hour work week / 4 hours of debate per item = 8 items / week (32 hours because the Senate takes Fridays off)
That’s not a lot, especially considering a single nomination can be split into 3 such “items” (discharge, cloture, confirmation).
This has less to do with Schumer and more to do with gruesome Senate procedure. I think the entire Senate would be happier if everyone agreed to let each nominee through in one up-and-down vote, save landmark nominations like KBJ’s. I’m ok with Supreme Court nominations taking up 12 hours of Senate time since they are super influential and rare.
100 years ago, for better or worse, the president chose a Supreme Court nominee, and within a week, the Senate had confirmed them.
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Your being generous with the 32 hour work week. They come in Monday 5pm & at most take two votes. Tuesday & Wednesday are full days & they are finished Thursday by 4pm. They may not even reach 30 hours of work most weeks.
And let’s not forget that’s the schedule if all 50 Democrats are healthy & in DC. Also that’s not taking into account the other non judicial nominees & legislation that are worked on during the week.
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I expect to see what was done with Freeman today happen to more Circuit court and lower court nominees going forward.
Why after this week, we need nominees and hearings ASAP.
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If I may ask, why? Is it because you expect Biden to soon nominate more candidates like Freeman, or do you think that there will be more obstruction on the part of Republicans no matter the candidate?
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They just need to start nominating people. There’s no way they don’t have a name for the Kansas seat yet. What are they waiting for? The same goes for the Rhode Island vacancy.
The unanimous vote for Jennifer Rearden is kind of hilarious. I doubt she’s any less liberal than Mary Dimke, or Fred Slaughter or Bridget Brennan (all of whome got almost unanimous GOP oppostion despite being career prosecutors). I believe she was the first Biden judge that Hawley, Blackburn and Cruz voted for – all because some nutty people on twitter hate her for a case she wasn’t even involved with!
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I believe Rearden had some role in the Donziger prosecution. I agree that Donziger is probably over-hyping Rearden’s role in it, however I am concerned that she might rule similarly to the judges who presided over Donziger’s case. Lewis Kaplan, the judge who permitted Donziger’s prosecution and appointed “mediators” who had ties with Chevron, is a Bill Clinton appointee and probably also a mainstream liberal. Rearden might very well do something similar should she have a similar case.
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I have hope that some progressive Democrats will vote against confirming Rearden, especially now that their vote is pretty much guaranteed not to change the outcome.
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This is not accurate at the moment, but can you imagine if this were true? It would be malpractice in the senate:
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Is this just me, or has anyone else realized that the Senate GOP has been especially hostile to Asian Americans?
3 of the judicial nominees who have received the most vicious attacks (Jennifer Sung, Dale Ho, Kenly Kato) are all Asian American. Even less controversial Asian American nominees aren’t getting a single GOP vote; Lucy Koh, who was praised by Chuck Grassley at the committee hearing, got 0 GOP votes at the actual confirmation vote, and even Robert Huie, who by all means could be a conservative on the bench, advanced by a single vote (I suppose it’s possible that the 11 votes for Huie include 1 Republican since Padilla was stuck in traffic or something).
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Ryan, it isn’t just you. Republicans are being strategic. They knew that after the first black woman is confirmed to SCOTUS, Dems will probably look to appoint the first Asian-American or the first Native American. So they try to make these nominees controversial from the start. Prior bipartisan or unanimous votes are big selling points for future nominees, so they want to deny them that. Republicans always play the long game. Essentially, Republicans are attempting to do what they accuse Dems of doing to Miguel Estrada.
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I have also noticed the vote pattern,
But even more noticeable the hostile questioning of the AAPI nominees from the GOP in the SJC. But with their record opposition overall, it’s harder to notice.
In other news. Congratulations judge Priscilla R. Owen. I think the best gift you could give to yourself is to retire immediately & enjoy your honeymoon… Lol
(https://davidlat.substack.com/p/here-come-the-judgesdown-the-aisle?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0Njg1NjQxNiwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTE1NDY5NjQsIl8iOiIvTlJNbSIsImlhdCI6MTY0OTA4MjA2OCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ5MDg1NjY4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjI5OTMzIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.Jp4doPdAJAFRjqCTo7P0ypzjFuc2HjMUR0C3cGbSwP0&s=r)
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Yeah that is true, GOP opposition has been too normalized. But I still think that there is some racial component, as Biden’s white nominees often get more GOP votes.
For a second you had my hopes up that Owen might be taking senior status, but logically, she won’t at least until her term as Chief is up in 2024.
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This is tuesday april 5th and still no new nominations released and the senate is about to go for break soon. Dale ho and charlotte sweeney were both nominated last year in september 2021 and they are both stuck in committee simply because schumer refuses to file cloture on it. At this point one should resign them selves to the fact that half at least of all these empty seats wont be filled up before mcconell takes over next janauary as expected, due to democrats having a good chance of losing the senate.
Its very possible that because of the midterms, covid still being a concern, that up to half or close to judicial seats would be left open. There is simply not enough time to confirm these seats if there is no name yet. Its such a shame but this is what happens, democrats dont take the judiciary seriously. Please stop deleting my comments. any criticism of this admin is bushed immediately.
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I have followed every SCOTUS confirmation since Sonia Sotomayor (2009). Here’s my takeaway for the KBJ and judicial confirmation processes as of this week:
1 – It has become very clear that successful SCOTUS confirmations can only happen when the WH and the US Senate are controlled by the same party. This has been the de facto norm since after Clarence Thomas (1991) when the Senate and the president were of the same party for all six of the successfully confirmed justices (1993 – 2010).
This norm was strengthened in 2016 with the Republican Senate blockade of Democratic nominee Merrick Garland. The de facto status has only continued for the four nominations since 2017.
2 – Relatedly, there is no such thing as a “low-stakes” SCOTUS confirmation, regardless of the nominee, who the nominee is replacing, or the makeup of the court.
If there were ever a nominee who should’ve sailed through the Senate, it’s KBJ: a mainstream nominee replacing a same party-nominated mainstream justice on a lopsidedly conservative court. If this nominee was replacing the sole liberal on an 8-1 court, it would still be a fight.
3 – Schumer knew that the SJC was going to be deadlock on KBJ. He didn’t just schedule her discharge vote last week “just in case” and he didn’t want to “wait and see.”
Of the Three Horsemen of Judicial Nomination/Confirmation I give Schumer the highest grade. This is why. His grade just went up a point. (Granted, he probably has the easiest role of the three.)
4 – Lisa Murkowski gets a shoutout, because if there was any pressure on this nomination, it was highest for her. For all her talk of rejecting the “corrosive politicization” of the process, electoral politics back home in Alaska may well have forced her hand. The pro-Trump vote in Alaska is already set in stone. She needs every liberal/moderate vote she can get with the new ranked choice system there.
5 – The Cruz-Cotton-Hawley gambit worked for THEM. They got their moment. They got their soundbite for 2024. More broadly, their disingenuous and over-the-top smear backfired.
Beside KBJ’s clear qualifications, this may have been a major factor for Mitt Romney’s support. Remember he complained about the trio’s line of questioning during the hearings.
6 – In the age of acknowledging the worth and contribution of people like KBJ, Republicans (from Blunt to Blackburn) had to pay lip service, as much as they would hate to admit it. In this era of equity, not a single R senator hasn’t reflected on KBJ the person and the historical nature of her confirmation (even while opposing it in the next breath).
7 – “Owning the Libs” has now pervaded every single aspect of right-wing conservatism, including judicial nominations.
Case in point: the SJC vote yesterday on the Jennifer Rearden nomination. “A small but loud group of progressives are against her? AYE all the way! Own them libs!”
(I am not making an argument on the merit of this nominee.)
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@Gavi
Very good observations. I too think Schumer is doing the best out of the big three so far but as you indicated his role is the easiest as he can make us all happy in the span of a week. I’m still upset when he closes the week out without filing for cloture on a Thursday on a circuit court nominee so they could be teed up for confirmation the following Monday. The fact that we are going to the Easter recess without Andre Mathis confirmed is a near crime in my book.
And your spot in about Murkowski. Her getting the election rules changed in Alaska was a great accomplishment & I hope it pays off for her this November. I am a Democrat that will be supporting both her & Liz Cheney’ re-elections.
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Decided to look at which day of the week that each of Biden’s batches of nominees got announced.
Batch 1: March 1, 2021 (Tuesday)
Batch 2: April 29, 2021 (Thursday)
Batch 3: May 12, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 4: June 15, 2021 (Tuesday)
Batch 5: June 30, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 6: August 5, 2021 (Thursday)
Batch 7: September 8, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 8: September 30, 2021 (Thursday)
Batch 9: November 3, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 10: November 10, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 11: December 15, 2021 (Wednesday)
Batch 12: December 23, 2021 (Thursday)
Batch 13: January 19. 2022 (Wednesday)
“Batch” 14 (Stephanie Davis): February 2, 2022 (Wednesday)
KBJ: February 25, 2022 (Friday)
Still hope for later this week.
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@Ethan
I wa thinking about that too. Not counting KBJ I was thinking they were all Tuesday & Thursday’s but I see a couple Wednesday’s too. Pretty much we are looking at the next 48 hours of hope. If not, it doesn’t look like we will see another batch until after the start of the Easter recess.
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I don’t think the December 23 batch exists. September 20 (Monday) and November 18 (Thursday) have batches, which I assume you correspond to Sep 8 and Nov 10. I don’t recall a June 30 batch either.
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that was Abudu and Childs
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So now that KBJ is near confirmation it’s never too early to begin the age-old game of guessing who will be the next SCOTUS nominee should a vacancy occur. While there is unlikely to be another vacancy during Biden’s term, recent history has shown us anything is possible. Since I correctly guessed the last three SCOTUS nominees (I was wrong four vacancies ago when I thought Thomas Hardiman would be the nominee that eventually went to Neil Gorsuch), here is my guess…
If Chief Justice Roberts seat becomes vacant, I predict justice Kagan will be elevated to chief justice.
If any associate justice seat becomes vacant, I predict Biden will make history & nominate Alison Nathan making her the first openly LGBT justice. I do believe there is a chance he will also nominate the first AAPI justice, but my prediction is Nathan with a strong push from majority leader Schumer.
Who do you all think would be nominated?
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Great predictions, Dequan.
This is assuming Biden is the president and the senate is still Democratic. (I am nowhere near verse on the personalities like you to give my own predictions.)
Biden does have the tendency to retread Obama nominees/people so Kagan is very likely to be nominated for the chief’s seat. Also, she and Ron Klain worked for Biden in SJC when he was chairman.
But say Biden wants to place a new justice in the chief’s seat, who would it be?
It would most certainly be a female. I don’t see Biden throwing away the very first chance to make the court 5-4 women (assuming KBJ is on it).
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Hmmmm… I honestly can’t imagine anybody other then justice Kagan or a then-justice KBJ being elevated to Chief Justice. If I had to pick somebody other then those two I 99% sure would say it would be a women.
I would assume it would be a woman he has already nominated to a circuit court. The only Obama females nominee I think that would get serious consideration would be 8th circuit court judge Jane Kelly.
So out of the Biden nominated judges other then Nathan or KBJ I would say maybe Beth Robinson as she would make history with her being LBGT. She was born in 1965 so her she would be a knock against her but if she’s replacing a Republican appointed Chief Justice that may be enough to overlook the age.
But I really see it as being a race between Nathan & KBJ.
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Hello Dequan (and all the rest), I am new here. My name is Aaron and I have been interested in the Federal Judiciary for some time, especially the Judicial selection process. I thought this would be a good time to jump in because I have been thinking about this a lot, even though it is not relevant at the moment. I still want to log my predictions for the future.
I am convinced that if Clarence Thomas’s seat becomes vacant during Biden’s Presidency, he will be replaced by an African American. I just can’t imagine any other constituency getting Marshall’s former seat. My guess is either Michelle Childs or Paul Watford. Childs would be a kind of peace offering (not that I think the republicans deserve it after treating Jackson so disgracefully) to cool what would be an especially hot confirmation process, considering how it would shift the court. Watford because I think he checks all of the boxes (moderate, black male, 60 plus votes for him when nominated to the 9th Circuit). He even has a pretty good record of making pro-criminal justice rulings. Also, as superficial as this sounds, he is physically quite attractive which I think can’t be discarded as a factor in picking someone. If a vacancy occurred today I think it would be him.
If a Republican wins in 2024 I think it will be Judge Rao. She clerked for Thomas and I think Thomas may try to push for her. So a situation kind of like what happened with Kennedy and Kavanaugh.
I agree with you that any other vacancy will be probably be filled by Alison Nathan. It would seem to me with all of the vicious anti-LGBT legislation going on that this would be the next constituency to give a Supreme Court seat. She also has republican 3 votes, including John Kennedy.
Other possibilities:
Gabriel Sanchez
Sri Srinivasan (if republicans win the senate, not that it will work.)
If republicans win the White House:
Patrick J. Bumatay (would make history as first LGBT and first asian, while still being very conservative)
Amal Thapar and Justin Walker (Mitch’s Boys)
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@ Aaron Pachtman
Welcome. I don’t know why I’m just getting the alert for your post so sorry for the delay but I just saw it.
Some good predictions. I’m not so sure Biden would replace Thomas with another African American (Of course assuming Democrats are still in the majority). There would certainly be a hard push from my community for him to do so but something tells me he would lean towards another historic first. With KBJ seated, I think he will look for either the first LGBT or first AAPI justice.
I think judge Nathan would be the front runner for LGBT as judge Robinson was born in 1965. I’m afraid who it could be if it was an AAPI justice. Goodwin Lui would be the best followed by Jennifer Sung but I’m afraid he may go with Lucy Koh or even worse Florence Pan judging by the court he nominated her for.
If it was an African American I think it’s more likely it would be one of the 11 he put on the appellate courts. Unfortunately J Childs is one of them which would be a horrible choice in a Democrat majority. The only exception would be justice Kruger from the California SCOTUS. Judge Watford is a good compromise choice but I feel Biden will go with one of his albeit an Obama judge is basically the same as him since he was his VP… Lol
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In a dream I had in July 2021, that’s exactly what happened. Roberts retired for whatever reason and Kagan took the chiefship. However, in that dream, I do not remember any indication of who the new associate justice would be.
In real life, I agree with the comments here that if Biden does get to pick a new Chief Justice it would either be Kagan or KBJ. I think Sotomayor would be considered if not for her age & diabetes.
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Exactly, my thoughts as well. Sotomayor is actually eligible to retire right now due to her age plus years of service as a federal judge. I see no chance of a president picking a sitting justice who could retire the day they are sworn in as Chief Justice anymore. Throw in her diabetes & I do not believe she would be realistically considered.
Speaking of Sotomayor I should have prefaced my prediction with the assumption that one of the conservative justices would be the seats being replaced & I predict by judge Nathan. Justice Kagan is not eligible for retirement yet. However since Justice Sotomayor is, if she were the seat being replaced I would switch my Allison Nathan prediction to Myrna Perez. There’s no way Biden would leave the court without a Hispanic justice, particularly with Myrna Perez being one of, if not his best pick to the bench to date.
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I think he needs to appointment considerably more Hispanic women as Judges for that eventuality. Myra Perez Got 0 Republican votes so I think she is out. In selecting a a justice a President still “has” to present at least a modicum of being Bipartisan. I personally would love to see a Justice Perez, but she would be fat too controversial for a mostly cautious President like Biden.
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At this point its clear there wont be a new batch of nominations this week and in my view likely we wont see one until next month or the last week of april at the best. Andre mathis is still not confirmed, dale ho and charlotte sweeney nomination has been stuck in committee for several months. The democrats arent serious, they are still busy pandering to GOP and seeking their input, half of the seats if not more will be left open before 2023. All because of democrats laziness and refusal to work on fridays and hold nomination hearings on recess. Shame on them and anyone who still excuses them, there is no justification whatsoever for there still not to be any 1st circuit nominees yet or for the kansas seat. its a joke.
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@ aangren
No lies detected. It’s beyond sad, particularly with how hottt the administration started off. Unless there is a second unexpected SCOTUS vacancy this year, the only hope for salvaging the judiciary for the Democrats will be to hold the majority in the senate.
And we all know when we finally do get another batch it won’t be as large as it should be. It won’t be more then a handful of circuit court nominees. It won’t be more then a dozen district courts nominees. Forget red or purple seats. Democrats won’t even fill all the blue seats, DC local seats or probably not even the international trade court seats. A complete disappointment, no excuses.
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I swear sometimes I think the only people who care about filling lower court seats are me, Dequan, and about 7-9 other posters on this site, lol…….We are in the minority!….
While it is great KBJ will soon be Justice KBJ, the price it has extracted on the lower court nomination process is significant……It (lower court nominees)has been a complete shutdown from the WH on down…
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@Rick
What will anger me even more is if when we finally get the nominees, if many of them will be who we were suggesting months ago. It would be one thing if the administration was taking so much time because they were vetting some lower progressive 40 year olds that most of us haven’t heard of before. But I think more likely then not the majority of nominees will either be names we have floated or even worse some in their 50’s which could have been announced weeks ago. I truly hate losing
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It’s shocking how slowly this admin moves on nominations.
I’m a single-issue federal judiciary voter, but the Biden WH does not discriminate when it comes to nomination tardiness. Take the following, for example. It took two senators writing him and a mandatory retirement for him to finally name someone to head a branch of the armed services:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/06/politics/linda-fagan-us-coast-guard/index.html?msclkid=6cf6edbeb5bb11eca77a2a1f5f85669a
We complain about Biden’s lack of urgency on here. Maybe it’s time for Dem senators to publicly remind him that there are vacant judicial seats that need filling. Maybe WE should call their offices and request that they speak out about it?
You would be forgiven to think that nominations are handled by a team of one: Biden himself.
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Considering that there have been nominations on Thursday previously, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there won’t be any nominations this week for sure. However I do think it is unlikely for reasons that are not liked by most here but are still going to exist, such as that background checks took a step back due to the Jackson nomination, Democrats not having a Federal Society equivalent to vet potential candidates, fewer seats in blue states being open compared to last year, and there not being a huge rush to nominate candidates until Jackson gets confirmed (especially with the Easter recess coming up). I think many people here are getting themselves a big worked up due to their fear of the Republicans regaining the Senate at any possible moment, but rushing to nominate unqualified candidates that end up failing to secure the vote of every Democratic senator is a much worse outcome for Biden than taking the extra time to make sure that the nominees will receive the support they need. I do think that there will be some large batches coming through in the next couple of weeks with 3-5 circuit nominees included.
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In what world is 3-5 circuit nominees out of 24+ (!!!) considered a “large batch?” 3-5 circuit noms don’t even cover the number of vacancies that’s been waiting an indecent amount of time already.
Everyone on here who’s defending the glacial pace of nominations, I hope that you are still around when Biden can no longer get his noms confirmed. The general derision you face will be well deserved.
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Well said and thank you!
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Its laughable to imagine a scenario where someone like myrna perez or holly thomas ever gets confirmed in the next congress, they likely would never even get a hearing , senator graham said the same would apply to KBJ if gop was in charge. It would be full and total blockade at best biden would be allowed to fill lower district court seats with prosecutors. People stood in line for hours in georgia and believe in democrats and gave them the majority and they cant even bother to work friday see thought of trump or desantis filling these seats is sickening to say it
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Abdul K. Kallon of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, has just resigned. That’s horrible news. He was fairly young & one of the better Obama district court picks from the South. I doubt Biden will get to fill his seat at all & if so probably with nobody as good or better.
He probably resigned for the same reasons as Greg Costa. He doesn’t see any bright future with him staying on the bench so he nice as well make more money in the private section. It sucks it couldn’t have been a Republican appointee instead.
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Terrible news. Another unfillable DC seat.
Kallon highlights the need for a (functional!) Democratic-controlled Senate: he was never given a SJC hearing when Obama nominated him for elevation to the 11th Circuit. And this is the kind of blockade some people on here have forgotten about!
I won’t soon forget.
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He should have been the replacement for George Sr. Judge Joel Dubina but Patrick Leahy insisting on honoring the blue slip thus a Federalist Society hack got in.
Happened in GA as well.
The 11th Circuit among other courts would be totally different if not for Patrick Leahy’s stupidity.
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Leahy’s insistence on blue slips will go down as one of the worst self inflicted wounds to the Democrats on the judiciary of all time. It showed Democrats are playing chess while Republicans are playing chest.
Looking at the Democrats incompetence on the judiciary we really should be thankful it’s not worst then it is. Between your Republican appointees like Souter’s & Roberts, it really could be much much worse.
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While it is unlikely Kallon’s seat will be filled, there are several good possible replacements.
1. Chinelo Dike-Mino (1978) is a law Professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. She previously served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Northern District of Alabama prosecuting Health Care Fraud. She clerked for Rosemary Pooler.
2. Nicholas Danella (1979) is a Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Alabama. He clerked for two Obama appointed Judges in California (Michael Fitzgerald in CDCA and Jacqueline Nguyen on the 9th Circuit). He also did some Pro Bono work while at Skadden Arps.
In a blue state, these would be C grades, but for Alabama, they’d be A grades.
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Yes this is a surprise, perhaps he was wanted to take a high paying gig in big law firm etc?
In any event, there are tooooo many circuit court seats to fill, plus plenty of District court seats in blue/purple states to worry about in my view……If this Alabama seat stays vacant for a while, so be it
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I’m not sure about that theory about Kallon. District Judges mostly conduct trials by themselves. They don’t typically rule on issues in groups or panels. I think that perhaps Kallon didn’t like being a judge.
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Please no more east coast nominees. We need someone from California and if it’s for Chief Justice Leondra Kruger would okay with me,
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Good point. Geographic diversity also matters. I was hoping that Leondra Krueger would be nominated this time around.
Maybe if there is another vacancy, Biden could nominate a state judge from outside the DC-New York-Boston area.
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Also, I feel like we will be like kids on Christmas morning when another batch of nominees is finally announced. I’d take a batch of US Attorney nominations as a consolation prize (as it could eliminate/ narrow down future possibilities).
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In the past before an Easter break or a recess the senate would confirm several district court nominees via a “voice vote”….In the last administration, there were numerous district court nominees voted out via voice vote……One example was John Milton Younge for EDPA…..He was a failed Obama nominee……He cleared the SJC with a 15-7 vote, all NO votes were from the Republicans….
I wonder if there is any chance a few of the district court nominees will be voice voted out today……If any nominee is would likely be Jennifer Rearden…..This would be beneficial if some of the 8 district court nominees would be voted out today, since there are plenty of discharge votes to still do along with several circuit court nominees who will now have to wait until at least late April
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Besides working on tomorrow, Friday since the senate is off the next two weeks, without unanimous consent to voice vote several nominees like last administrations, Schumer should at the very least do the following…
1. Discharge all tie voted nominees.
2. Vote for cloture for all circuit court nominees.
3. Vote for cloture for at least five to eight district court nominees.
This should setup confirmation votes for the Monday & Tuesday following the return from the break.
To leave for recess with only a KBJ confirmation & no other action on any other judicial nominees would truly show the difference between how Republicans & Democrats treat the judiciary. Not to mention no new batches still this week.
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McConnell would have kept senate in Fridays and/or weekends to move District Court or Court of International Trade nominees, let alone any pending circuit nominees…
If the only action today is just the KBJ confirmation then it will be a major disappointment
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All of this is within Schumer’s power.
All the discharge votes + district + circuit court nominations can be set up later today or tomorrow. That would absolutely help to run out the clock on each action throughout the two week recess, making them ripe for next/final action when the senate returns. I haven’t given up hope that Schumer will do this for district and circuit courts, and possibly discharge vote for Dale Ho (since he’s a NY nom.).
However, if Schumer does nothing on judicial nominations, that would indeed be a monumental disappointment. It’s such a simple way to do almost nothing that will result in major time-savings down the road.
The $10B COVID aid bill and the GOP Title 42 stunt will take up most of the Senate’s bandwidth after their recess so now’s the time to act on the nominations!
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When do cloture motions ripen?…..A cloture motion could be filed on a Thurs am then the vote could be same day correct?
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@Rick
Without unanimous consent only a district court nominating can have cloture filed & be confirmed the same day after the 2 hours of debate had expired. A Supreme or circuit court nomination couldn’t be done the same day as that takes 30 hours of debate.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is Schumer could use weekends & recess time more efficiently. For instance now that the senate is about to go on a 2 week recess, at the very least he should file cloture on all pending circuit court nominees since they take up the most time. Him confirming KBJ today is a great achievement but if no other action is taken of the remaining judicial nominees, I will consider it a pyrrhic victory.
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Further to Dequan’s comment, some other noms like for the Fed also require 30 hours of debate (not sure if it’s cloture or post-cloture). There are 4 such before the senate. While the 30 hours for one (Jerome Powell) would more than likely be waived, the others would be competing with the judicial noms for cloture/post-cloture floor time.
If Schumer does bring up nominations after KBJ, I highly think that they will include those for the Fed. But that’s OK because the judicial noms can be added to that list.
(It gets technical with the Fed noms because Powell will go last, meaning the more “controversial” three would go before, requiring hours of debate if there isn’t unanimous consent to yield back these hours.)
Time to invoke cloture on KBJ. Is Sen. Booker’s (presiding) enthusiasm infecting anyone else?
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I know what you all are mentioning are things that Schumer should be doing (which I 100% agree with) – is there any chance he actually does them today? As in, when is the latest he can file for cloture/to discharge from committee and still have it ripe over the Easter break?
It looks like this is all that’s on the Senate’s agenda, but I’m not sure if Schumer has to telegraph that he is filing a cloture/discharge motion before he actually does it: https://twitter.com/SenatePress/status/1512061828037156882?cxt=HHwWpICpqZWO9vspAAAA
I’m not expecting him to do anything just because my expectations for Dems are rock bottom at this point. Anybody know why Demand Justice/People’s Parity Project/other advocacy orgs are not ringing the alarm on the slow pace? I’ve started calling senators about the slow pace of judicial confirmations, but it’s going to take more than a few of us calling to really move the needle (if at all).
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Schumer absolutely can schedule more votes the day of even if not scheduled prior. But to answer your first question of will he… The answer to that is NO. He won’t. Mitch McConnell would. But no, Schumer won’t.
I think progressive groups have not sounded the alarm because despite the slow pace, Biden is still ahead of most other presidents in the past two generations when it comes to confirmations. The issue with that is two fold. One, past presidents have not had nearly unified opposition like Biden does. And two, with Democrats almost surely to lose the senate after the midterms (A poll released in the past 24 hours shows Hershel Walker ahead of senator Warnock outside of the margin of error), there will probably be less confirmations in the last two years of Biden’s term then Obama’s.
Add in no new batches in sight & it comes to one conclusion. We are losing folks. There’s just no other way around it.
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Motions do not need to be on the calendar beforehand. Filing them puts them on the calendar. I also don’t have much faith in Dems’ management of judicial noms, but I highly doubt that Schumer would waste such a golden opportunity to kickstart final confirmation of judges before a two week recess.
Schumer can file for cloture/discharge at any time the senate isn’t in legislative session. He simply has to go to the floor, bring the senate into executive session, and file his motions.
District noms need two hours
Circuit noms need 30 hours
Discharge motions:
District = 4 hours then 2 hours
Circuit = 4 hours then 30 hours.
Advocacy groups:
I think everyone (not including some of us on here) are just too busy with the KBJ nomination. Ridiculous, I know. Maybe after today we’ll start to hear them putting pressure on Biden/Schumer.
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Circuit nominees need 30 hrs but can’t Democrats yield back all their time, thus only 15 hours ?
Schumer isn’t aggressive enough…..He could EASILY tell McConnell “Hey, if you don’t want to voice vote a few district court nominees I’ll file cloture on all nominees and we’ll stay here til Saturday”…….But instead this is what Schumer does, he says:
“Hey McConnell, you don’t want to confirm any judges, then neither do I……I file the discharge votes when you say it’s ok to….If you prefer, I can even withdrawl the Dale Ho nomination….You say jump McConnell, & I’ll say, “How high”?
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https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Cannot believe that they are keeping the vote open for Rand Paul! I wouldn’t have cared if the SJC GOPs didn’t refuse to let the committee vote go ahead when Sen. Padilla’s flight was delayed on Monday.
What happened to Schumer’s “strict” 15 minute voting rule?
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Congratulations Justice-elect Brown Jackson. This is a great day for America.
The senate has no further votes for today. I get the celebration for KBJ but really disappointing otherwise on the judicial front. I’m just thankful this process is over so Biden & the senate Democrats can finally shift their focus back to the lower courts as it seems walking & chewing gum is not in the cards.
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Congrats to Judge KBJ on her historic confirmation!
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Susan Collins just tested positive for COVID.
Might not be a bad thing a break is coming up soon cuz I have a feeling she won’t be alone soon.
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I wish senator Collins well. I was actually wondering what would happen if she ever got COVID with her streak of not missing a vote in tact. So I’m actually happy she got it right before the recess starts so she won’t miss a vote & keep her streak in tact.
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Sen.Warnock just tested positive for COVID as well.
Have a feeling he won’t be the last Senator to do so either.
Might not be a bad thing there is a break next week after all.
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Article speculating about who will replace KBJ on D.C. Cir. here: https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/04/07/speculation-swirls-over-judge-ketanji-brown-jacksons-replacement-as-supreme-court-elevation-seems-certain/?cmp=share_twitter&slreturn=20220307233528.
Between Biden’s slow pace of nominations, Durbin not scheduling hearings, and Schumer missing great opportunities to file cloture/discharge like today, following judicial nominations has become depressing in recent months. At this point, I wouldn’t be shocked if these geriatric clowns straight up fail to fill the seat, but maybe they’ll surprise me.
In the unlikely case they do, I think Crespo, Cobb on DDC, or Prelogar would all be good picks. They’re all young enough to be SCOTUS candidates in like 2032 (and it may take that long for the Dems to gain both the presidency and the Senate again). Crespo would be the first Latino on the court, while Cobb or Prelogar might get confirmed faster since they were already confirmed once by this Congress.
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Do you have the text of the article? It’s been a paywall.
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After Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, speculation is growing as to who could fill her vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Jackson has spent 10 months on the D.C. Circuit, often viewed as the country’s second-most important court. It’s also seen as a pipeline to becoming a justice.
“I wonder if [Biden] will take a ‘This could be our last chance to set up future administrations with a primetime Supreme Court candidate’ kind of approach,’” said John P. Collins, a George Washington University law professor who studies judicial nominations.
Jackson was confirmed by the Senate in a 53-47 vote. Three Republican lawmakers—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine—backed her nomination.
The White House has been quiet about any potential contenders for the opening on the D.C. Circuit, and no lawyers speaking about the vacancy purported to have inside information about whom the White House counsel’s office has spoken to.
The names of several judges on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia—where Jackson herself spent almost nine years—are considered potential shortlisters. They included Judge Jia Cobb, a former Relman Colfax civil rights attorney who Biden appointed last year, and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who worked as a public defender before joining Boies, Schiller, & Flexner’s white collar defense team before her elevation to the bench in 2014. Neither responded to a request for comment.
Court watchers noted that a district judge nominated to the appeals court might have a quicker and smoother confirmation process, one consideration especially as Democrats fear losing a slim Senate majority in the upcoming midterm elections this fall.
The White House, in a departure from past administrations, has made efforts to nominate individuals with backgrounds as public defenders and advocates over prosecutors and Big Law partners.
Other possible contenders include Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, U.S. Supreme Court litigator Kelsi Brown Corkran and Gupta Wessler founder Deepak Gupta, who focuses on representing consumers and workers at the Supreme Court. Before that, Gupta was senior counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and worked as an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, where he founded and directed the Consumer Justice Project.
Corkran is the Supreme Court director for Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and prior to that was head of the supreme court practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Prelogar, before being confirmed to her current position in October 2021, served as an assistant to the solicitor general for five years. She also worked as an appellate litigation partner at Cooley.
“Justice Kagan was the solicitor general for a little bit more than a year before she was confirmed to the Supreme Court, so it’s not without precedent that somebody, after a short stint leading that office, gets nominated to a judgeship. [Prelogar] is somebody who would check a lot of boxes,” Collins said.
Corkran declined to comment. Gupta and Prelogar did not respond to requests for a comment.
The D.C. Circuit’s caseload largely consists of appeals concerning the federal government’s actions, with judges regularly weighing how much deference is owed to agencies. That unique aspect of the court could factor into Biden’s decision.
Former President Donald Trump appointed Judge Neomi Rao to the circuit in part because of her view on administrative law. Before joining the bench, she led Trump’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and spearheaded his deregulatory agenda.
Daniel Goldberg, legal director for Alliance for Justice, said he hopes the current White House considers an attorney with constitutional and administrative law experience.
“President Trump put on the bench Neomi Rao [and] Justin Walker, two individuals who were picked explicitly because of their records of wanting to eliminate the ability of the federal government to protect workers, consumers, the environment, to give full effect to some Congress’s most important laws,” Goldberg said. “Given the breadth of agencies that go through the D.C. Circuit, I think it’s important that [Biden] look at for the next seat somebody with appellate experience dealing with these important administrative law issues.”
Meanwhile, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund has called on Biden to appoint the court’s first Latino or Latina judge.
Thomas Saenz, the organization’s president and general counsel, said the group sent a letter to the White House naming seven Latino and Latina individuals they would support for the role. He declined to share any names on the list but said all had ties to the D.C. area and have a range of professional experiences.
“This is a circuit court that has an inordinate influence outside of its specific geography… [and] so many of our Supreme Court justices historically, have come off the D.C. Circuit,” Saenz said. “That’s why it’s such an important court for the first Latino or Latina judge to be sitting.”
One name being floated is Andrew Crespo, a Harvard Law School professor who teaches criminal law and procedure and serves as the executive faculty director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration. He also previously served as a staff attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. He did not respond to a request for comment.
There are also currently 76 sitting Hispanic district court judges, including 25 sitting women Hispanic judges, according to a Federal Judicial Center directory. The White House may elevate one of the Hispanic district court judges and in doing so would create another vacancy, said Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute.
“This court draws appointees from all over the country. It’s not an informal requirement to be a judge in the District of Columbia Circuit,” Wheeler said. “So that’s where I would suspect [the White House] is looking.”
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Andrew Crespo would be my first choice albeit you could get a two for one by nominating him to the 1st circuit (MA) seat. My second choice would be Deepak Gupta.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar would be a solid choice, but pone could argue her current position may be the only job in America that could set her up for SCOTUS consideration just as much as the DC circuit.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is simply too old & I hope not being seriously considered. Kelsi Brown Corkran would not be good as there are countless better options.
Jia Cobb would be solid, but I doubt Biden will name three straight black women to the court. If I got my wish & somehow J. Michelle Childs switched to the 4th circuit (SC) seat, I would say Jia Cobb’s stock would rise.
Besides them, anybody on Thomas Saenz list that we don’t have would be great, I’m sure.
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I agree that Chutkan and Corkran are unfortunately too old at this point.
I hope the reason you mentioned isn’t the reason someone else is picked over Cobb. Biden’s last 5 COA nominees have been Black (last 4 have been Black women) & half his COA nominees total have been Black. Maybe I’m giving the Democratic party too much credit, but I can’t imagine any influential Dem would suggest (except in anonymous grumblings) that a Democratic president is nominating too many Black judges.
Yeah I also wish Childs were switched to the 4th but doubt that will happen. Oh well, we can always dream.
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@John
I was speaking purely as a political manner that I don’t think Biden should nominate three consecutive black women to the DC circuit. I am a huge Biden supporter & as a black man myself, I feel he has done a lot for the Black community when it comes to the courts. While most of the country will look at KBJ, I look at his impact on the lower courts as well. With him nominating more black women to the circuit courts then every other president combined, I just feel he can use the KBJ seat to “spread the wealth” a little. I would like Deepak Gupta, the first Hispanic, an AAPI or LGBT judge personally.
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@Dequan
If I had to guess, I would say that both Tovah Calderon (nominee for DC Court of Appeals) and DC Superior Court judge Marisa Demeo are on Saenz’ list, along with Andrew Crespo.
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@Shawn
Hopefully some or all of the remaining six from Sanez list can be considered for other courts like Crespo.
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@John
Kelsi Corkran was born in 1976. She’s not too old by any means, but there are probably better options.
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@Dequan
I suspect that many of the people on Saenz list are too old. I’m not sure that Saenz is prioritizing youth here.
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Hmmmmm… Well out of 7 recommendations I’m sure at least 4 should be solid in both youth & progressive background from Saenz list. But without seeing the list I’d be willing to bet Crespo is the best. I can’t imagine who could be better. He’s straight out of central casting for a young, progressive Hispanic with a background that should put him on a SCOTUS shirt list once confirmed to a circuit court.
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In the immortal words of John P Collins:
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(https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/biden-turns-to-lower-court-backlog-after-jackson-confirmation)
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(“While we were assured repeatedly by the White House that they wouldn’t stall lower court nominations during the Supreme Court confirmation process, we’ve unfortunately seen a dearth of nominees during this time,” said Molly Coleman, executive director of People’s Parity Project, a progressive group made up of law students and early career lawyers, who added, “time is running out.”)
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Well to be fair The White House didn’t lie. They didn’t “stall” lower court nominations. They completely STOPPED… Lol
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I am happy for KBJ. She will be a great judge.
It took a little over a month for her to be confirmed. Her nomination was officially received by the Senate on 2/28. That shows that Schumer could be doing the same to get all judges confirmed in the same time frame if he really cared. But he doesn’t and it will cost Democrats when tons of judicial vacancies aren’t filed.
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Looking back, I’m super grateful that Clyburn was not a member of the Democrats’ 50-seat majority, because if he were, he could very easily force Biden’s hand into picking J. Michelle Childs by threatening to vote against any other nominee.
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Yes, and this is why I’m not going to vote for the Democratic House candidate in my swing district as long as Jim Clyburn remains in leadership.
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I really don’t understand why people have a problem with James Clyburn’s support of Michelle Childs. He knows her. It takes a lot of nerve to attack the only African American leader on Capitol Hill. These unrelenting attacks on Childs and Clyburn are racist. The confirmation process is over,
Last week, we saw how some of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Commitee tried to smear Judge Jackson. The tenor and manner of the questions they posed were rude and racist. But that’s
what you can expect from Republicans they used race whenever they could especially against Barack Obama. However, to have folks who refer to themselves as “progressives” engage in the same sort of tactics is despicable.
This is America you can vote for whoever you want. You want to oppose folks who want to restore our voting rights? It sounds like
privilege to able to not care about what happens with policy issues because a politician isn’t acting the way you want.
In the 2000 election we the people supporting Ralph Nader and himself saying that Al Gore and George W Bush were the same. It was self-defeating. So what did we get from 2000 election loss? We got Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh,.
We can’t afford to give away another election
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@ Kevin Collins
Very good point. While I deeply disagreed with Clyburn trying to push Childs for SCOTUS & am extremely upset his backing of her led to the current DC circuit appointment (Especially with a vacancy on the 4th circuit where she is from), I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I am supporting re-election for Liz Cheney, Lisa Murkowski & Mitt Romney this year based on principle. Pretty much every other office in the nation I am supporting a straight Democrat ticket from senator to governor to dog catcher. The two sides aren’t the same & the consequences are simply too great.
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J. Michelle Childs is a piece of crap nominee who was consider only due to political patronage. If saying so makes me “racist”, then I’m proud to be one!
You add absolutely nothing positive to this blog. People like you and pademocrat (utter scumbag of the highest order) from Daily Kos Elections are the reason why progressives sit out elections or vote third party. You think attacking progressives will get them to vote for your crappy candidates? I would vote for a J6 insurrectionist before I would vote for a professional left basher like you.
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Shawn – I really don’t understand what you are saying. You don’t think politics plays a part in who gets nominated to appeals and the Supreme Court? Of course, politicians are going to suggest people that they know.
As for Judge Childs can you cite any cases that support your claim that she is “crap” judge? I have not seen or heard from any litigant who said she is a bad person or judge. To say what you said is a bare statement of personal beliefs unsupported by any proof.
If all you have is that Judge Childs was an employment side attorney early in her career it sounds kind of weak.
We just saw other week how Senate Republicans were endeavoring to smear Judge Jackson because she was a public defender. They used race and looked ridiculous it also backfired.
Lastly, for me it’s not really about the politicians themselves. I see them as a vessel for the policy issues that we need to address.The courts were not created to make public policy. That’s the role of Congress,
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Now that Biden has signed Ketanji Brown Jackson commission & she is officially a supreme court justice, I hope her replacement is named in the next batch of nominees whenever we get it. They should already know who the replacement would be for months & I hope they started the FBI vetting since no home state senators needed to be consulted. For God’s sake if we have to wait 82 days & counting since the last batch, at least let’s have a large batch of new nominees waiting on the horizon.
(https://www.fjc.gov/node/1394151)
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WOW.
As a student of the judiciary and the confirmation/appointment process, I am still learning new things. I didn’t think that the president could appoint her yet (by signing her commission). Yes, the issuance of the judicial commission and appointment are one and the same. I thought he had to wait until there’s an actual vacancy, i.e. when Breyer officially retires. Now, I guess all she has to do is get sworn in.
Re: Other nominations. We say that EVERY week. I’ve given up on Biden. The KBJ-elevation gap on the DC Circuit will be nothing compared to the Tatel retirement (only to get Childs in the end).
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@Gavi
I was yesterday-years old when I learned that as well. I thought you had to wait until the vacancy actually occurred before the commission could be signed but apparently not so we both learned that.
And yes I also agree, unless Democrats hold the senate then the judiciary will be lost for a generation. It’s been 83 days since the last batch. I bet Trump didn’t go that long without new nominees at any point of his FOUR years in office. This administration simply can’t walk & chew gum at the same time when it comes to the judiciary.
It’s borderline criminal we haven’t had at least a few new nominees at this point, especially with all the circuit court & blue state district court seats vacant. At this point I actually think Durbin is holding off on the hearing for the remaining pending nominees & Schumer is holding off on confirming the pending nominees voted on to the floor just so they don’t run out if nominees to confirm & make Biden look bad. It’s truly infuriating.
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Since we have no more nominee for this site to “vet” let’s engage in idle speculation.
Is Lauren J. King (40!!) of a District Court in Washington a suitable candidate to be the first Native American justice if a vacancy miraculously arise?
Or are there better candidates? I know we probably can’t find better than 40, age-wise.
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If the 9th circuit seat goes to Washington (That’s still debatable as California is requesting two addition seats including the seat now vacant), Lauren King would be a strong contender. I personally would rather see Marsha Chien or Jamal Whitehead (Or him to one of the two district court seats) as Washington state would have no Black judges in any of their two federal district courts or circuit court seats if he or another African American is not nominated.
Just as long as it’s not a David Estudillo moderate type judge I’ll be ok with whoever. Tana Lin would be the perfect candidate for elevation if she was a decade younger.
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@Dequan: I meant possible Native American nominees to SCOTUS.
Also, to those who are just fine with the Biden nomination pace, the same Rep majority that will block Dems SCOTUS noms can also block Dem lower court noms:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/why-kbj-will-be-the-last-democratic-justice-for-a-long-time.html
The kicker: “Bazelon forecasts that Republicans will probably hold somewhere between 56 and 62 Senate seats after the 2024 elections.”
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Ah ok. I’m not as well versed in progressive Native American possibilities to SCOTUS. I believe there are only a handful on any federal courts & just 3 of them were appointed by Biden. The one to the Maryland district court is too old as I’m sure all appointed by Obama would be so that currently only leaves the one Biden nominated to the central district of California & Lauren King assuming she was elevated to the 9th circuit.
But bottom line is Biden should nominate more & there are some good opportunities. While I don’t have names, I’m sure you could find some for current vacant seats in Arizona, California & Kansas at a minimum.
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Yes, and Biden’s nominees shouldn’t be late 40’s or 50’s. His noms to the lower courts need to be able to serve there for at least a decade and still be viable for SCOTUS when the time comes. Biden needs to seed the courts with late 30 and early 40 year olds with a nice bench of potentials.
And I am not concerned and wouldn’t hold a district court judgeship against a possible SCOTUS nom. Remember Obama considered KBJ for SCOTUS when she was only about 4/5 years into her tenure on a district court. And Reagan appointed O’Connor from a STATE appellate court to SCOTUS.
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I read that Bazelon article this morning and it is horrifying. It puts into reality just how much sh*t this country is headed for if Democrats keep stalling.
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No, the Bazelon article was just lazy analysis. The Democrats he lists in 2024 as likely to lose all drastically overperform in their states. It was on par with the kind of “analysis” provided by the obvious troll Charcuterie on Daily Kos, “analysis” which makes that site just blatantly unreadable.
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Yeah also agree that the Bazelon article (and a look at the 2024 Senate map) is ominous. I would hope Shawn is right that the candidates will drastically overperform like they did in 2018, but that was a midterm year and the best year for Dems since 2008.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible for Manchin/Tester/Brown to win, but given the decline of ticket-splitting, they probably start out as strong underdogs. As for the others, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin is a strong performer, but the other Senators are average. Stabenow (MI) and Casey (PA) actually underperformed their respective governors, which I remember was a surprise to election observers at the time. I can’t imagine the national environment in 2024 (a presidential year) will be nearly as favorable as in 2018 (a midterm year with a Republican President), so Dems really do need to be panicking and doing everything they can to confirm nominees right now.
@Shawn I agree with you on most points actually, but sometimes the histrionic language towards other points of view can be a bit counterproductive. I don’t like reading pieces about the Democratic Party’s bad prospects this fall or in 2024 either, but it does not benefit anyone to ignore the challenges on the horizon for Dems in the Senate. In fact, Biden, Schumer, etc. are already in denial about how dark things will look if they don’t fill every seat before the midterms – we need to be shaking them out of it, not joining them in sticking our heads in the sand.
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The Bazelon kicker is exaggerating but they do have some good arguments. The betting markets also favor Republicans to take back both the House and the Senate. However, they do falsely claim that incumbency advantage is basically non-existent, and while it may be weaker, it certainly still exists and plays a significant role in the races.
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Going back to possible Native American nominees, Matthew Campbell could be considered to the 9th circuit Arizona seat. He also has ties to Alaska, but I doubt he could receive both blue slips for the district court seat in Alaska.
(https://www.narf.org/profiles/matthew-l-campbell/)
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I’ve been wondering why Harsh hasn’t been making new posts, but now I realize that he’s literally run out of nominees to write posts about.
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@ Ryan Joshi
Yup… No more nominees to post about. I bet he never ran out when Trump was president. It’s sad
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Good news & bad news….
The good news is we have another vacancy in the district court of New Jersey & he was a GW Bush appointee. The bad news is the New Jersey senators will probably screw it up & either recommend somebody almost as old as he was or almost as conservative as he was…smh
(https://www.fjc.gov/node/1392426)
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Eh, Georgette Castner certainly wasn’t old nor conservative. The other NJ nominees were more towards the mold you are describing.
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One halfway decent nominee does not make up for several who are just a pile of shit.
And even Castner would get maybe a B- from me, there were several far better options.
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New nominees from Biden, which seems to prove that he didn’t want to announce new nominees until Jackson was confirmed: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-unveil-five-new-judicial-nominees-bringing-total-90-rcna24145
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New nominees incoming:
7th circuit, 9th circuit, three district courts. A disappointingly small batch.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-unveil-five-new-judicial-nominees-bringing-total-90-rcna24145
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I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw another batch in a couple of weeks here. Now that Jackson has been confirmed, the pace of the lower court nominees will kick back up into high gear.
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Five… Five… 84 days & we get FIVE. Where are the nominees for Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Puerto Rico, California. How do we have a nominee for IOWA but still so many blue states with no nominee. I’m laying back down before I throw my phone… Lol
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We don’t know what is going behind the scenes for many of your blue state examples, but in the NBC News article that came out about the Puerto Rico vacancies a few months ago, there was disagreement about who should be nominated between the Biden administration (who wanted to nominate a more liberal nominee) and local politicians (who wanted to see some more conservative people picked).
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There’s 3 open seats, they should be able to compromise like they compromise with the Pennsylvania senators
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Puerto Rico doesn’t have any US senators. Why do they need to compromise? Just nominate three young liberals. If they want to recommend a liberal nominee I would entertain it but there should be no conservatives nominated to Puerto Rico.
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Ok but they shouldn’t be stalling over a fight about the nominee’s ideology. As I’ve said before, I’d rather have compromise than leave the seats open.
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@ Ryan Joshi
No I agree with you on I would rather compromise then leave seats empty. But what I’m saying is only 101 people have a constitutional say on who sits in the federal judiciary. That’s the 1 president & the 100 senators. Puerto Rico has neither. So Biden shouldn’t need to compromise in that case.
I know the politicians in PR usually recommend nominees but just like Trump disregarded Rep. Holmes recommendations for DC seats, Biden theoretically could do the same in PR. I don’t see how that would tank a nominee. Now Iowa is different. The Iowa nominee isn’t somebody I would want to see from New York, California or Illinois but for a compromise nominee in a red state he’s perfectly fine. But PR doesn’t fall into that category so I don’t think Biden should hesitate to recommend a nominee for all 3 seats as long as they are progressives, which from the one name I’ve heard, so far she is.
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Quite a disappointing batch, to be honest – and not only because of its size. The Circuit picks are moderates in their 50s…
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I’d love to hear Dequan and Shawn’s view on the 2 circuit nominees Lee & Mendoza)……For me, they seem to centrist for blue states, couldn’t we have done better than that…….Let’s save the centrist nominees for red states…..Chicago and Seattle based seats should be much more progressive nominees..
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Also interested – I’m disappointed at how moderate they are, and I’m sure Dequan and Shawn will hate them. Lee is 54, and if Biden really wanted his first Asian male COA nominee, he could have elevated Chang (who is 51 and a solid liberal on NDIL despite a prosecutorial background). Of the district court judges in Washington to elevate, I guess Mendoza is the best of the non-Biden appointees since he’s 50, Latino, and mostly practiced criminal defense (though I would’ve still nominated Lauren King instead).
I have a feeling these were because sitting district judges can have their hearings earlier, and the administration is hoping their moderate backgrounds will mean less opposition from Republicans in the SJC/on the floor. I question whether that’s the right move though – I would hope we don’t need to discharge Mendoza or Lee from the SJC, but after Graham’s unhinged performance during the KBJ trainings, will he really continue to allow Biden nominees to get voted out of committee?
As for confirmation votes, Lucy Koh didn’t get any votes from Republicans on her confirmation to 9th Cir. despite being older, having a centrist background, and getting plenty of Republican votes on her confirmation to NDCA (she was confirmed 90-0!).
Good that they picked Maldonaldo to fill the NDIL seat. Otherwise, it’s a disappointingly middle-of-the-road batch in hopes of chasing Republican cooperation (that probably won’t happen).
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You hit it right on the nail with the fact that the background checks will go by much faster and they will get some Republican votes (unlike many, I seriously doubt that the Jackson nomination will induce Graham to start voting nay on most of Biden’s nominees in committee).
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Ok I think I’ve settled down to the point where I can write a response to this batch without using language that would make a sailor blush…
I am disappointed in so many ways at this batch. First, after 84 days all we get is FIVE nominees. When I started reading The White House announcement I was actually hoping it was a typo & they meant to say 15 new nominees. Even that would have been a little less then I expected after such a long wait but it would have been acceptable. Now let’s get into the nominees.
John Z. Lee isn’t even the best AAPI possibility from Illinois. Jennifer Nou is more progressive & a decade younger. Plus I’ve said before when you elevate a district court judge to a circuit court seat, they should be young & progressive enough to make it worth the SJC committee time plus floor time it will take to backfill the district court seat. I would even give a little credit if he was a former Obama nominee that never got a vote such as Lucy Koh. Dale Ho would be an AAPI example of somebody worth it. John Lee isn’t.
In Salvador Mendoza case, let me start off by saying I was wrong about this remaining a California seat. With that said, I’m fine with putting a Hispanic nominee in the seat as I have said Biden needs to increase his Hispanic nominees to the circuit courts. But they need to be younger then their mid 50’s as in this case. This judge won’t be a viable SCOTUS nominee even during the remainder of Biden’s term, let alone a future Democrat administration.
Nancy L. Maldonado is good albeit I thought one of the other recommendations (I think her last name was Shelley) would have been the best choice. But as I said there is a need for more Hispanic nominees so I get it with this choice.
In the case of Gregory B. Williams, I’m all for putting more black men on the federal bench as they are under represented but once again can we find any in their 40’s… Williams is about a year older then the judge he is replacing for God’s sake. I’m happy to see a veteran appointed however as they too are under represented on the federal bench.
Stephen Henley Locher is probably the best we could get out of a red state with blue slips in play so I’m perfectly fine with him.
I hope the strategy of The White House is not picking moderate nominees who will only get 5 or so Republican votes versus more liberal ones that will get 1 or 2. With the senate in peril after the midterms, this is a 2 year window that can’t be wasted. Mitch McConnell sure doesn’t think that way which is why the Republicans are winning on the judiciary.
Bottom line, we need another batch within the next couple weeks.
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@Dequan @Shawn Mendoza is better for me than Lee. He’s actually turning 51 near the end of this year, so not quite mid 50s (and would be a viable SCOTUS candidate until 2024, though not someone I would personally pick). He’s also spent most of his career in criminal defense after a year as a prosecutor, though that was in private practice and not as a public defender.
I think it’s foolish of the administration to just be elevating district court judges, but he was probably the best district court judge in Washington to elevate (other than King, who’s only been on the bench a few months).
The administration picking Lee over Nou (who they seemed to have vetted since she deleted her Twitter at one point) is a horrible decision. The only way this is forgivable is if they are prioritizing speed and filling all the COA seats as soon as possible before the midterms (and have selected more progressive picks for other seats).
And if they really wanted to prioritize speed, they would have released some of these nominations sometime in the last 82 days rather than wasting time like this. The difference between pre-KBJ nomination and now is night and day – almost like a whole different administration.
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@Hank
I agree Mendoza is better then Lee. The issue is these are blue states, DEEP blue states at that. We shouldn’t have to settle in either case. Trump sure as Hell didn’t settle even in blue states. He put young, hard line conservatives on the 9th circuit. Us responding with barely left of center nominees in their 50’s isn’t gonna cut it.
If this was mixed in with 18 to 20 other nominees it would soften the blow. But to have only five nominees after waiting 84 days, only for the nominees to be this is truly disappointing. I’ve said it before & I will say it again, when it comes to the judiciary WE ARE LOSING. This batch does little to turn the tide. If anything it demoralizes the troops.
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Perhaps Jennifer Nou will be nominated to succeed John Lee on District Court.
I’ve looked her up. She seems to specialize in Administrative Law and separation of powers. Is she known to be progressive?
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Jennifer Nou is a board member on the American Constitution Society. I wasn’t aware of that until @ Shawn pointed it out to me on an earlier post. Plus one of her students wrote on an earlier post stating she’s very progressive as well.
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How about plainly awful. I would give the the Lee and Mendoza picks a D and D- grade. The selection of Locher gets a F because there should not be any more district court nominees from red states until every blue state seat is filled.
The only decent nominee here is Maldonado.
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Yeah we waited 80+ days to get 2 centrist nominees for deep blue states……As that segment on ESPN goes “Come on Man”.
Save the centrist nominees for the red states….
Now I’m scared as to who the KBJ DC Circuit seat will go to…..The WH needs to hit a grand slam home run there, & I’m afraid will end up with Michelle Childs Part 2
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5 Nominees! 5 Nominee! What an absolute joke, this is rubbing it in the faces of voters and people like us who care about the judiciary. They take several months to release a batch, then its only 5 made up of hard core prosecutors and this is what we are supposed to be happy for? They deserved to be crushed in the midterms and i hope dem voters abandon them. As a black man why should i continue to support an administration that cant even take nominating judges to protect my civil right and liberties seriously, its a joke. The GOP held judicial hearings even when the senate was in recess , think about that, that shows you the level of commitment mcconell and grassley had to changing the judiciary, democrats sadly dont size up at all and we are celebrating 2 circuit nominations and 3 district nominations of mostly prosecutors? jokes. the failure is on biden and schumer alone. The fact that andre mathis is still not confirmed is a joke and rubbing salt on the wounds. Oklahoma just passed a bill that makes performing abortion illegal, you would think that would prompt them to more actions but no. its a joke
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@aangren
As an African American who checks many other boxes and who has a lot to lose in our rightwing courts, I want to thoroughly associate myself with your comment.
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I think folks here are looking for things to complain about. In my view black people are the last group who should be complaining.
It was Joe Biden who chose the first black woman Kamala Harris to be Vice President, She’s not suitable for the job. Nevertheless, he fulfilled his promise to black voters. I didn’t agree with her selection. Her staff is quitting in droves and she’s reportedly engaged in infighting with Biden Administration staffers. If something happened to Biden does anyone honestly believe Harris can be elected in her own right?
In addition,, Biden has selected more black US Attorneys than any administration in history. We also have more black women nominated and confirmed to the appeals courts than all other Presidents combined.
We just saw Biden honor another campaign pledge to put the first black woman Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court.
Last year “progressives” were publicly disrespecting Justice Breyer for not retiring when they wanted him to. The Biden Administration reached out to Breyer and people close to him privately. We’ve never had a justice retire several months ahead of the term. It was classy for the Biden Administration to preserve Justice Breyer’s dignity so that he could retire with grace.
The confirmation of Judge Jackson was the most polished and well prepped in recent history. This happened in an evenly divided Senate.
Lastly, this is America ; you can vote for whomever you want to. However , as black Americans I think we have an obligation to our ancestors to not waste our votes on Green Party etc. Those folks and their ilk have never done anything for us and they never will.
Let’s move forward not backwards my brothers!
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Deeply underwhelming…
As bad as Obama was on judicial nominations, he still gave Biden quite a lot of options for elevation. AND that was with a much more difficult senate confirmation process (absolute blue slip rule, 60-vote threshold pre-2013, Tea Party see: Kansas Sens. reneging on recs, etc.). But yeah, Obama nominated a few 40-somethings to the district courts (KBJ!) that now make up a bulk of Biden’s circuit noms. I wish Biden would do the same. The next Dem president 10-12 years away will mainly have judges in their 60s to nominate to the circuit courts and SCOTUS.
I know that I am on a lone crusade about the age of judges, but I play the long game. So more 35+ year olds, please. Thank yew xox
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What type of rulings have Mendoza and Lee made? Pretty obvious they’re going with district court judges for the appeals courts cause they’re running out of time. Stupid. They shouldn’t have wasted time then. Just nominate the youngest person possible
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Mendoza I am not excited for it but it’s not horrible either. b material. Lee is a beyond awful though especially when he’s replacing a Chicago based judge. There are so many younger and liberal judges to pick from.
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Just from Lee’s Wikipedia page, he ruled that the IL governor’s stay-at-home order at the beginning of covid was constitutional when a church challenged it: https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/5/3/21245936/stay-at-home-order-constitutional-us-district-court-john-lee-beloved-church-lena-illinois.
I personally think this is a good sign of him being a liberal judge, but I guarantee that the Republicans are going to jump on this in his confirmation hearing. It’s a perfect reason for them to vote against him to be honest, and I can even see it being a reason the committee might deadlock on him despite his centrist background.
If the whole point of elevating district court judges was to confirm them quickly, then Lee was not a good pick either (even though I agree with this decision). I figured this out after 2 minutes of Googling, so the administration has far too much faith in the Republicans if they think this isn’t going to be an issue.
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@Hank
That’s exactly my point. If Dale Ho is being elevated then I don’t care how much time is going to be wasted on discharging him plus back filling his district court seat. But to do so for a nominee in his 50’s that’s probably left of center & then have to back fill his district court seat is not worth it. Especially with so many younger & more progressive choices from Chicago. I’m not even the biggest Jennifer Nou fan but she would have been light years better as an AAPI nominee.
I’m actually surprised Durbin signed off on this. I would have thought he would push for Nou or many other possibilities after his phenomenal choice on Candice Jackson. Unless he’s really close with Lee personally which is a possibility.
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@Dequan I honestly doubt this administration is going to have the time to backfill their district court seats before the midterms, especially if the pace is going to be 5ish new nominees a month.
I’d rather have an open district court seat than an open court of appeals seat, especially in Blue states if blue slips will remain in place for district court nominees. But as you point out, there would be no reason for this if they had just been nominating people during the KBJ confirmation process.
I think KBJ is wonderful and am glad she’s on the Supreme Court, but we’re paying a heavy price for that in terms of the lower federal courts. KBJ replacing Breyer has no practical impact (though a powerful symbolic one) give the 6-3 conservative majority on SCOTUS, but leaving a bunch of district and appellate seats for Trump (or whoever) to fill in 2024 or 2028 will have truly awful ramifications for people living in those places.
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All great points. At this point, after the dibacle of the past 84 days there is no way to have a chance at getting anywhere close to the gains the GOP made during Trump’s 4 years unless either any of the following happens…
1. Durbin starts to either hold more then 5 nominees per hearing or holds hearing during recess weeks like Republicans did.
2. Schumer starts to have the senate in session on Friday’s. He also needs to cancel one of the recess weeks in August.
3. Most importantly, the Democrats find some way to hold the senate in the midterms. With the current environment, that’s sadly not likely.
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Again, they have to have at least reasonable qualifications or else they won’t get confirmed, which would actually waste more time in the end.
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Important distinction:
I do not hold it against Biden the people whom he does NOT nominate. This could be due to many reasons that we do not know about. Like, things that come up in background checks or even the person’s interest in the job or personal situation. So as much as I love Nou, maybe she wasn’t nominated for a reason. We can sort of guess that she was vetted (Twitter). Maybe she came up short.
That said…
I can and do hold it against Biden the people he DOES nominate! Just because the Admin had to pass on some candidates does not mean that it should settle for subpar nominees.
Bonus:
What do Lucy Koh and Dale Ho have in common? = Both had/have little or no GOP support.
What’s the difference between them? = Ho is way younger and waay more progressive.
If the process is going to be the same for two vastly different nominees, you may as well nominate more Dale Hos.
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Mendoza is looking a bit better to me after doing more digging – it’s interesting that he was not only the son of migrant farmworkers, but was a farmworker himself back in his youth:
I’m looking forward to Harsh’s write-up to see if Mendoza’s jurisprudence reflects his background, but perhaps he’s not as much of a centrist as I had thought at first (especially since he was a prosecutor for only a year). I still would’ve preferred someone 5-10 years younger though.
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Yes but I can’t find much on his rulings. It’s great that he’s the son of migrant farmworkers but his rulings are hopefully liberal. Hopefully he’s not another David Estudillo
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