Judge Leon Schydlower – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

El Paso based Magistrate Judge Leon Schydlower should be a safe choice to join the short-staffed Western District of District.

Background

Schydlower received a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993 and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1995. He subsequently worked with the Judge Advocate General Corps in the U.S. Navy for two years and then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.

In 2000, Schydlower moved to El Paso to work for the Kemp Smith law firm and shifted to being a solo practitioner two years later. At the same time, Schydlower continued to work with the U.S. Navy Reserve and then with the U.S. Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate Corps.

In 2015, Schydlower was appointed as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Texas, where he currently works.

History of the Seat

Schydlower has been nominated for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. This seat opened on February 26, 2021, when Judge Philip Ray Martinez passed away.

Legal Experience

Schydlower started his legal career with the U.S. Navy JAG Corps, and moved on to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii, where he prosecuted various offenses, including the theft of government property. See United States v. Chon, 210 F.3d 990 (9th Cir. 2000).

In 2000, Schydlower moved to El Paso and worked in private practice. Schydlower’s civil practice included medical malpractice cases, see, e.g., In re Navar, 143 S.W.3d 869 (Tex. App. 8th Dist. 2004), as well as federal habeas cases. See Berkley v. Quarterman, 507 F. Supp. 2d 692 (W.D. Tex. 2007). Schydlower has also represented plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Zia Park, LLC, 842 F. Supp. 2d 1316 (D.N.M. 2012).

Among his more notable cases, Schydlower represented Maria Castillo, whose medical malpractice claims were dismissed by the trial court for failure to provide an adequate expert report, which was affirmed by the court of appeals. See Castillo v. August, 248 S.W.3d 874 (Tex. App. 8th Dist. 2008). Schydlower also represented Christopher Houseman, an immigration agent, who sued a Mexican publishing company for publishing his photo alongside an article about an immigration agent who had been arrested for involvement in narcotrafficking. See Houseman v. Publicaciones Paso del Norte, 242 S.W.3d 518 (Tex. App. 8th Dist. 2007). The defamation claim was dismissed, with a finding that a reasonable listener would be unlikely have been mislead by the photo and caption. See id.

On the criminal side, Schydlower represented defendants in both Texas and New Mexico, taking court appointed cases. See, e.g., United States v. Quaintance, 471 F. Supp. 2d 1153 (D.N.M. 2006). Schydlower also handled a number of criminal appeals before the Fifth and Tenth Circuits. See, e.g., United States v. Montano, 472 F.3d 1202 (10th Cir. 2007).

Jurisprudence

Schydlower has served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge since 2015. In this capacity, Schydlower presided over the pretrial aspects and discovery stages of cases, and prepared reports and recommendations for district judges. He also presided over cases by consent. Among the more prominent cases where Schydlower prepared a Report and Recommendation, he recommended that Judge David Guaderrama deny a motion for summary judgment brought by police officers sued for unlawful entry into the home of the plaintiff. See ER v. Jasso, 573 F. Supp. 3d 1117 (W.D. Tex. 2021). While the officers alleged that their actions were protected by qualified immunity, Schydlower rejected those claims, and Guaderrama agreed, denying summary judgment on those claims. See id.

Political Activity

Schydlower has a relatively limited political donation history, which includes donations to State Rep. Joseph Moody, and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, both Democrats.

Overall Assessment

As a judge with a plaintiff-friendly background who nonetheless has won the support of his home state senators, Schydlower should be seen as a consensus nominee and should be comfortably confirmed.

103 Comments

  1. Dequan's avatar

    Leon Schydlower certainly seems like a safe choice. Although he is a Democrat in a red state, he doesn’t seem to have anything controversial that should prevent him from being confirmed. With donations to GW Bush & Democrats, he seems to be a good compromise nominee. Of course being a veteran only further helps.

    Like

      • keystone's avatar

        Her background looks strong.

        However, I get the sense that Kennedy isn’t particularly supportive of nominees who are Black women. Yes, I’m aware he nominated Dana Douglas, but there have been a lot of politically moderate, highly credentialed, black women noms that have earned considerable cross party support that Kennedy has voted down.

        For instance, he voted against cloture for Michelle Childs, who is conservative and had blue slips from both SC senators. He skipped the confirmation vote. Blackburn even voted for her but Kennedy didn’t.

        He voted against Doris Pryor and Tiffany Cunningham who both got confirmed with 60+ votes.

        I think the only Black women he’s voted for have been Dana Douglas, Patricia Tolliver Giles, and LaShonda Hunt. (I may have missed one).

        Just an observation.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        And remember, Kennedy didn’t initially want Dana Douglas for the 5th. He recommended Pappillon. When Cedric Richmond recommended Douglas for the circuit court, it was only then Pappillon got the EDLA. As I’ve said before, Kennedy has been surprisingly good when it comes to supporting Black men to the bench. Look no further than Andre Mathis.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Child’s is my second least favorite Biden circuit court judge. Still, I don’t believe she’s conservative. That’s not the problem (Which there are more than one of) with the Child’s nomination.

        The first problem is there are waaaaay more progressive possibilities for the DC circuit. And that seat could have gone to any number of DC or even out of DC nominees. I would even consider doing what GW Bush did after he couldn’t get Janice Rogers Brown on the SCOT-CA & use a seat for a nominee that couldn’t get confirmed in a red state. Maybe not Scott Colom himself but certainly someone in that vain.

        Second, you shouldn’t put anybody on the DC circuit that isn’t a SCOTUS possibility for the foreseeable future. One could argue Childs is but that’s mainly because of Clyburn’s backing.

        Third, there was a vacancy on the 4th (SC) at the time. Clyburn pushed hard for her to get the DC circuit so he could get two circuit court picks instead of just one.

        Childs to the DC circuit was such a bad move on so many fronts but none of them because she is conservative.

        Liked by 2 people

  4. Ethan's avatar

    There are still several Texas seats open.

    Northern District of Texas:
    -Dallas seat vacated by Clinton appointed Judge Barbara M. Lynn: I’m honestly surprised that Magistrate Judge Rebecca Rutherford (born c. 1971), a former clerk to Lynn, has not yet been nominated.

    Southern District of Texas:
    -Houston seat vacated by Reagan appointed Judge Lynn Hughes: I will note that the retirement of Clinton appointed Judge Vanessa Gilmore leaves this court with no Black women. But I don’t have my hopes up that Cruz/ Cornyn would agree to one. My top choice would be Smyser Kaplan & Veselka Partner Karima Maloney (born c. 1975), a Black women who clerked for Gilmore and previously worked for the Criminal Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, More realistically, I’d keep an eye on Magistrate Judge Christina Bryan (born c. 1965), who clerked for an LBJ appointed Judge (Homer Thornberry) on the 5th circuit ran for a local judgeship as a Democrat in 2010; Magistrate Judge Peter Bray (born c. 1970), a former Assistant Federal Public Defender who clerked for Reagan appointed district Judge Sim Lake; and Magistrate Judge Yvonne Ho (born c. 1972), who does NOT appear to be related to James Ho.

    -McAllen seat vacated by George W. Bush appointed Judge Micaela Alvarez: I’m fully expecting Magistrate Judge Juan Alanis (born c. 1970), a former Assistant US Attorney. I’d LOVE Magistrate Judge Nadia Medrano (born c. 1981), a former Assistant Federal Public Defender but no way Cruz/ Cornyn would agree to her.

    Western District of Texas:
    -Austin seats vacated by Judges Earl Leroy Yeakel III (Reagan appointee) and David Guaderrama (Obama appointee): These seats might be a little harder since there is only one Magistrate Judge I could see being picked, and that is Judge Susan Hightower (born c. 1965), who clerked for George H.W. Bush appointed 5th circuit Judge Jacques Weiner and worked for the US Patent and Trademark Office. It could very well be someone not on my radar who gets one or both of these seats.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. raylodato's avatar

    There are relatively few (scheduled) new vacancies coming up–Seabright (HI) on the 30th, but Smith has already been confirmed and should be able to get his commission immediately; Howell (D.C.) on 2/1; and Wright (MN) on 2/15.

    This would be a perfect time for the Senate to reduce the number of vacancies since so few are scheduled to be added. Let’s hope there are no hiccups on Thursday at SJC and all 19 nominees are voted out.

    Liked by 3 people

    • star0garnet's avatar

      With only Howell and Wright set to add to the vacancy count before the end of April, the senate has a chance to set recent low marks for judicial vacancies. (Figures below count confirmed but uncommissioned seats as filled.) We’re sitting at 61 Art. III vacancies, and outside of the first two weeks of his presidency, Biden hasn’t had fewer than 57 (this past December 19-26). The current 61 falls in the 6th percentile of fewest vacancies for a day under Biden; it would have fallen in the 8th under Trump, 11th under Obama, and 73rd under Bush. To the senate’s credit, they haven’t let the vacancy count skyrocket at any point like it has under other presidents this century.

      Vacancy count under a president has ranged from:
      Biden: 46 (day 1-2) to 88 (Nov 2022 and Feb 2023)
      Trump: 46 (last month) to 146 (Apr and Jul 2018)
      Obama: 42 (Dec 2014) to 109 (Dec 2010 and Jan 2017)
      Bush: 28 (Sep 2004) to 112 (Jul and Oct 2001)

      If this senate gets the vacancy count under 42 (which it should be able to), it would be the first time since Nov 2008. If it gets the count below 34, it will be the first time since Dec 2004.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. tsb1991's avatar

    In terms of what to expect from the Senate, they’ll likely spend the whole week passing a CR, so the only progress we’ll see on nominees will be the SJC meeting on Thursday.

    Also, apparently some bipartisan tax agreement that includes some version of the child tax credit was reached between the House and Senate, so I’d think sometime down the road a week will have to be used up to get that through the Senate (unlike cloture and then confirmation, I think the procedure for bills is cloture on the motion to proceed, motion to proceed, cloture, and then passage assuming no time/UC agreements).

    Liked by 1 person

    • Zack's avatar

      Both of the retirements make sense, as one of the judges (Barry Anderson) will be reaching mandatory retirement age this fall) while the other Margaret Chutich would have to retire in 2028 even if she ran again.
      Anderson will be a flip while Chutich was noted as the first member of the LGBT community to be on the state supreme court.
      Throw in the soon to be vacant district court seat in MN and as you said, it’s a good time to be a judicial nominee hopeful.

      Liked by 2 people

      • rob's avatar

        John Barrasso is also out this week he had a do surgery I believe at the weekend. A perfect week to confirm the 3 nominees that weren’t confirmed last week.

        However a combination of the CR votes and the fact I don’t think all the dems would stay at the weekend or Friday even if Schumer tried will stop this sadly.

        This is what annoys me about the Dems, McConnell would keep the senate in session and use this to his advantage if this was 2 dems missing for a week.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Dequan's avatar

    That is very good news. While not quite New Jersey & Michigan, Minnesota is another state that has a governor that is good on judges. He is term limited so hopefully that will move him even further to the left with his picks.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Mitch's avatar

    In 2006, Leon Schydlower ran for the state House of Representatives. He won the Democratic nomination, but dropped out of the race afterwards.

    He is the most progressive of the Texas judicial nominees, so he won’t be getting 80 votes. But he’ll be confirmed nonetheless.

    Liked by 2 people

    • keystone's avatar

      Interesting. U.S. Army Veteran, paratrooper, former captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Has been a prosecutor and a defense attorney. President of the Austin Bar.

      There’s some good stuff there. I could see the TX senators liking the military background.

      It does look like she’s currently running for re-election (Primary in March). Not sure how that effects things.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. Zack's avatar

    For the final vacancy in the Southern District of California, I wonder if Michelle Pettit will be given another shot, especially since she has now been made a magistrate judge?
    Have to say I hope not since there are a lot more moderate/liberal nominees then her.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Dequan's avatar

    10 minutes for the SJC meeting. I’ll be watching. We really need these nominees voted to the floor. 2024 is off to a slow start for confirmations with the few nominees agreed to be held over from last year.

    Like

    • rob's avatar

      The CTC/Tax credit agreement and the foreign aid/Border deal are both a long way from passing the senate. They would also be tied up with the full year spending agreement that this CR bill is suppose to achieve.

      Basically next week the senate should have nothing to do but vote on nominations and that should mean Judges and I will grant them 1-2 other non judical nominees a week to vote on.

      The next couple of weeks we should hopefully see 10 judges being confirmed or maybe I’m being too optimistic

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Ryan J's avatar

    Congrats to Bernie Sanders on being the oldest voting senator for the first time last night. Hopefully Sanders is the oldest senator to vote on the Mehalchick nomination (voting for or against both count as voting on a nomination)

    Liked by 1 person

  17. tsb1991's avatar

    As far as judicial confirmations next week, the only judge cloture could be filed on tomorrow would be Mehalchick, so if the next week is dedicated to nominations, Monday and Tuesday could have Mehalchick and a couple of other non-judicial nominees. The nominees voted out of the SJC tomorrow won’t appear on the executive calendar until after the end of the day tomorrow, so cloture on those nominees would need to wait until Monday.

    On Monday you could then begin filing cloture and fill up the the Wednesday/Thursday slots (maybe three district court nominees and an appeals court nominee?). Since the Senate has Monday the 29th off I hope the Tuesday could have two votes in exchange (confirm an appeals court nominee and then cloture on the next nominee).

    Liked by 1 person

      • tsb1991's avatar

        On her SCOTUS nomination or her DC Circuit nomination? Her SCOTUS nomination was deadlocked and needed to be discharged, I believe you can file for a discharge the second the nominee deadlocks, once discharged they’re on the executive calendar.

        For her DC Circuit nomination, that was done 5/20/21 and cloture wasn’t filed until 6/8/21.

        Like

      • tsb1991's avatar

        I think the calendar is updated after the Senate adjourns, the calendar that is updated tonight will be Thursday’s calendar. Cloture could be filed on the nominees listed, but with the SJC votes tomorrow, they won’t be published until the Friday calendar, so once the Senate leaves Thursday. Not sure what the schedule is for other committees, but the calendar published tonight would include nominees voted out today from other committees (I’m sure Foreign Relations and Armed Services have a backlog from the re-nominations, for example).

        The only nominee I remember getting an expedited confirmation right out of committee under this President was Benjamin on the 4th Circuit. I believe there was a UC agreement to file cloture on her the day she was voted out of committee (I’m sure having Graham’s support didn’t hurt, and not only that it was at the start of the Congress so I’m sure the agreement was so that Congress finally had something to vote on as nominees were getting back out of committee), otherwise they would have needed to wait until the following week.

        Liked by 1 person

  18. Gavi's avatar

    Put simply, matters sent from committees to the full senate need time to be “spread upon the record” and placed on the calendar. This is mandatory, but for a unanimous consent agreement to vitiate the requirement. One reason is to give senators time to review proceedings from the prior day before they are asked to vote on a matter they haven’t fully studied. Also, to allow for motions to recommit (send back to committee).
    A tied committee vote (in case of KBJ’s SCOTUS SJC vote) is *not* reported out of committee. In KBJ’s case, this tie allowed Schumer to call up the nomination immediately for a discharge vote. If SJC Republicans wanted to delay things, one of them should have voted for the nominee in committee. That would have bought them about a day haha.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. star0garnet's avatar

    While there may be some funkiness involved, per the congressional record, these are the most recent nominations to have cloture filed on the day they were reported:

    Under Obama, 3 of the 231 reported nominations that had cloture filed:
    02/04/10: Craig Becker to the NLRB
    09/11/14: Jeff Baran to the NRC
    09/11/14: Stephen Burns to the NRC

    Under Trump, 8 of the 408 reported nominations that had cloture filed:
    10/26/17: Allison Eid to the 10th Cir.
    10/26/17: Stephanos Bibas to the 3rd Cir.
    12/07/17: Steven Grasz to the 8th Cir.
    12/07/17: Don Willett to the 5th Cir.
    12/07/17: James Ho to the 5th Cir.
    02/07/19: Bill Barr to be AG
    07/18/19: Mark Esper to be SecDef
    11/07/19: Steven Menashi to the 2nd Cir.

    Under Biden, 2 of the 366 reported nominations that had cloture filed:
    03/25/21: Polly Trottenberg to be Dep. Sec. Transportation
    02/02/23: DeAndrea Benjamin to the 4th Cir.

    Interestingly, Schumer has been a fair bit more efficient in filing for cloture than Reid or McConnell. He’s filed 56% within 50 days of them being reported, and 84% within 100 days. For McConnell under Trump (he only filed twice under Obama), those figures were 50% and 72%; for Reid under Obama, they were 47% and 76%. Past the first congress of a presidency, the timing relative to the the term doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in this respect. I guess Reid and McConnell might have been testing what would require cloture in this era of skyrocketing clotures while Schumer has had a better idea despite his narrower margins.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. keystone's avatar

    One name that intrigues me for one of the Arizona seats is Jean Jacques Cabou.

    He’s been in the press recently bc he’s one of the lawyers defending the Florida prosecutor that DeSantis removed over his stance on abortion. The 11th Circuit recently ruled in favor of Cabou’s client on the grounds that the removal violated the right to free speech and kicked it back to the court.

    The case hits on a few hot button issues at the moment – abortion and free speech.

    Cabou has also consistently donated to Sinema’s campaign over the years, going back as far as her 2012 run for Congress. I suspect he and Sinema have a connection. Desai had a similar donation pattern going back to 2012.

    I wouldn’t be shocked if he was nominated to one of the Phoenix based seats.

    Liked by 2 people

  29. Gavi's avatar

    My god, if Republicans invoke the 2-hour rule, it’ll be Dick Durbin’s fault. He exerts so little control as chair of his committee. He allows Republicans to disregard him and his authority and go off on long speeches. And keep saying “last senator [Booker] to speak on this nomination” only to have a half dozen more speeches.

    This is only acceptable if Durbin gets to extend the meeting beyond the 2-hour mark. Otherwise, it’s a display of his ineffectual leadership. I would give everyone their allotted time, plus a few minutes extra. But if you want more time to bash me, the chair, or to attack the nominee, I would cut your damn mic and move on to recognize another senator. But that’s probably too confrontational for the mere Durbin.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Mike's avatar

    Well Sarah Russell sounds like the last nominee Cruz has an issue with, so she’ll get pushed through and if that’s that for today I guess the good news is the remaining nominees so next week they should get through them more easily and quickly.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Dequan's avatar

    Here is my recap of todays SJC executive meeting;

    Durbin started off by talking about Grassley being out sick. He later reminded everybody Democrats allowed 13 nominees under Trump to be voice voted to the floor after a new year.

    Cornyn talked about him & Cruz working with the WH in good faith to fill Texas vacancies. He commended the Florida & South Carolina senators for the same. He then spoke about Durbin keeping blue slips in place & thanked him for not bowing to “the extreme left”. He then proceeded to state why Kasubhai, Mangi & Berner are bad nominees.

    Blackburn then spoke about why Seth Aframe should be disqualified from serving on the federal bench. After Blackburn finished, Durbin rebutted each of her accusations about Aframe.

    Lee followed by Blackburn then spoke about his concerns about Berner. Durbin rebutted some of the accusations & called out one in particular as “false”.

    Cruz, Lee, Blackburn & later Cornyn then spoke about their opposition to Mangi. Cruz was particularly animated giving a Dale Ho-esse performance name checking everything from the TV show Hogan’s Hero (Sorry I’ve never seen the show so I can’t expand on the reference he used) to the Russian Politburo.

    Durbin then spoke passionately about the SJC teaching a new low with their treatment of Mangi. He spoke about Mangi’s Muslim faith. He read a letter from a Jewish organizations letter of support for Mangi.

    Cruz then angrily denounced Durbin’s comments. Durbin tried to cut off Cruz but Cruz said under senate rules, he can defend himself if another senator impugns his character. Later Hawley spoke about against Durbin’s claims that the senators who oppose Mangi are doing so because of his Muslim faith. Hawley called on Durbin to retract his statement. Durbin said he stands by his statements.

    Senator Hirono & Booker then spoke in defense of Mangi. Hirono said she is the only Buddhist to ever be a U.S. senator & believes in religious diversity throughout the government. Booker extensively refuted many of the claims against Mangi.

    After crusing though a handful of nominees, Cruz then asked to speak before the vote for Kasubhai. He then said several things that made committee members (And myself) bust out laughing. First he said senate Democrats are trying to flood the zone by surrounding the most extreme nominees with ones that can get bipartisan support, despite Durbin going in alphabetical order. He then said Booker accused senate Republicans of McCarthyism even if he doesn’t know if he’s referring to Eugene, Joe or Kevin. Then him & Booker had a funny exchange challenging each other to a game of basketball which lightened the mood in the room.

    Cruz then said the finally nominee he wants to speak on was Sarah Russell when it was time for her vote. He spoke about the letter she didn’t include about she wrote to the governor of Connecticut. The letter was regarding releasing prisoners during Covid. Blumenthal then spoke in defense of Russell.

    Durbin then said under the rules if the committee, they need two members of the minority to be present to continue the meeting. At first there was only Cornyn was the only member present but then Cruz returned so Durbin continued with the roll call votes.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Yes, after about 2 hours & 10 minutes, finally everybody was voted to the floor. I really hope (Although I’m not hopeful) that Schumer waste little time calling up the party line voted nominees for a vote. Particularly with at least one Republican senator out.

      Like

    • Ben's avatar

      Yes I believe everyone was voted out.

      Meanwhile, Schumer just filed cloture on…. The Amtrak board of directors! At least we know how they’ll be starting next week. Like usual, he won’t start the week on Mehalchick or another close exec nominee before he can count absences .

      Liked by 1 person

      • rob's avatar

        I don’t usually defend Schumer but I agree no party line nominees vote on the first vote of the week as you run the risk of senators missing it. Whether that is from illness over the weekend or travel issues.

        Sen Sanders on Tuesday was late which required voted to be rescheduled this week.

        However I agree he should be setting up judicial votes for the rest of the week.

        Liked by 1 person

      • rob's avatar

        Sorry I should also of said these Amtrak nominees were party line votes in committee and Tester held them up for months as he wanted more western states representation so I imagine that’s why they are now being voted on. Also can’t rule out the fact a certain person in the Oval Office wants them confirmed asap after all he famously was known as Senator Amtrak.

        Liked by 1 person

  34. Joe's avatar

    Thanks y’all.

    I think the issue that we discussed earlier this week is in play – Schumer can only file cloture on Mehalchick until the nominees from today are placed on the executive calendar.

    Like

  35. tsb1991's avatar

    I’m in and out of calls today so I was a little behind on the meeting. Was a bit surprised they couldn’t get a voice vote on at least some of the red state nominees? That definitely would’ve helped out with time.

    For the vote tallies, here’s what I cobbled together. Only one I’m not entirely sure of was Austin, where the audio cut out during the vote. Looks like her final vote was 19-2. One of the no votes was Blackburn, the other no vote would have been from Cotton, Cruz, or Hawley (there was no audio during this time, I saw thumbs up for Graham’s, Grassley’s, and Lee’s proxy votes, would assume Cornyn is a yes).

    -Mangi, Berner, Aframe, Kiel, Russell, Kasubhai, Lee were all party-line votes
    -Baggio (OR) and Sherriff (EDCA), Sneed (MDFL), and Wang (Intl Trade) were 12-9 (Graham voting yes)
    -Becerra (SDFL) was 13-8 (Graham and Tillis)
    -Brisco (NDIN) was 14-7 (Graham, Kennedy, and Tillis)
    -Damian (SDFL) was 19-2 (Hawley and Blackburn voting no)
    -Leibowitz (SDFL) was 16-5 (Lee, Cruz, Hawley, Cotton, Blackburn voting no)
    -Lund (NDIN) was 20-1 (Hawley voting no)
    -Laroski (Intl Trade) and Manglona (Northern Mariana Islands) were 21-0

    Given Sneed’s 12-9 vote even with Rubio and Scott’s blue slips, I assume that was Biden’s pick more than anything else?

    Liked by 2 people

    • Gavi's avatar

      I saw this and it bothered me to no end that Durbin didn’t take this perfect opportunity to call BS on Cruz:

      Durbin: The junior senator from Texas is correct about the Quraishi vote. Senator Cruz, since you raised this point, please remind me, did you vote for Quraishi? Or any Muslim nominee, for that matter?

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      @raylodato

      Great catch. I didn’t even. Other looking the roll call vote up, assuming Cruz voted to confirm. I apologize because my default position should always be to never trust a weird that comes out of his mouth & immediately verify for crap & bs. My God Texas, please do better this November & finally send him packing.

      Like

  37. Zack's avatar

    What irks me about the attacks on Mangi is Republicans make it a point to put theocrats on the bench yet claim to worry about Mangi not being able to put his religious beliefs aside in rulings?
    The hypocrisy in regards to that is galling to no end.
    I won’t post some of the attacks I’ve seen on social media on him but I will say Democrats need to hold firm and have him confirmed sooner versus later.

    Liked by 1 person

  38. keystone's avatar

    Texas actually has a not insignificant Muslim population. I know it’s Texas and it’s just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a state that is quickly drifting left and whose margins are getting tighter and tighter every cycle. I hope the TX Dem party does some outreach regarding Ted Cruz’s rants. Same goes for the Michigan Dem party and the Dearborn community.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      It’s great to see four circuit court nominees pending on the floor. I remember September 2022 Schumer used the month to predominantly confirm the backlog of circuit court nominees. I would hope the goa is to confirm all four pending by the end of February. Particularly since I have three of the four as A+ nominees.

      Like

      • tsb1991's avatar

        No one was voice voted today, unless Republicans wanted a roll call vote on everyone to try to bump up against the two hour limit on the meeting and have a spillover into next week? But yeah, there were a few nominees that were 19-2 or 20-1 votes that weren’t voice voted (even on voice votes, Graham would tell Durbin at the end which Senators wanted to be on the record voting no, so you could have had that with those 19-2 or 20-1 votes today).

        The biggest vote surprise for me today IMO was Sneed (Middle District of Florida) only being 12-9, given the support from Florida’s Senators. I know some of the red state nominees (like Hill and Lund) do get more Republican opposition probably because those were Biden’s picks and not the state’s Senator’s picks in some compromise, but 12-9 is what you’d frequently see on most blue state picks.

        Like

  40. tsb1991's avatar

    To answer a question I had earlier, all of the nominees voted out do have new executive calendar numbers, so the nominees who were voted out last year didn’t retain their calendar numbers (I remember Lee and Kasubhai having numbers 405 and 406 last year, which they no longer have). The nominees voted out today have calendar numbers 459-478. 459-462 are the appeals court nominees, so if you see cloture filed on a nominee in real time, if you get one of those number you’ll know a big nomination is coming up a split second before the nomination name is stated by the clerk lol.

    Liked by 2 people

  41. keystone's avatar

    I’m all in favor of clearing up the circuit court queue, but with regards to the district noms, I hope they confirm Eumi Lee and at least one of the Oregon noms sooner than later b/c I think those courts have judges nearing senior status eligibility (and who will prob take it if there isn’t a queue).

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Hopefully Schumer does what he did last year June 15th to December 13th & that’s focus on all non-red state district court nominees. That near six-month streak cleared a large batch of blue state, & DC nominees. Baring any unforeseen Democrat attendance issues combined with the Republican senators mentioned earlier this morning that could miss time, Schumer could save the red state district court nominees for March.

      I’m sure Austin will get thrown in the mix just because she’s from Grahm’s home state. Other than that it really should be circuit court, blue state district court & DC parade of confirmation votes from now until the end of Black history month.

      Liked by 1 person

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