Jasmine Yoon – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia

An in-house attorney at Capital One, Jasmine Yoon, would be, if confirmed, the first judge of color on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

Background

Yoon’s ties to Virginia go far back, as she received a B.A. from the University of Virginia in 2003 and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2006. Yoon subsequently spent three years as an Associate at Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington D.C. before clerking for Judge James Cacheris on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Subsequently, Yoon became an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, which she left in 2016.

In 2019, Yoon joined the University Counsel’s Office for the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In 2022, she shifted to become Vice President of Corporate Integrity, Ethics, and Investigations at Capital One Financial Corporation.

Yoon’s husband, Christopher Kavanaugh, currently serves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, and has indicated that he will step down if Yoon is confirmed.

History of the Seat

Yoon has been nominated for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. This seat will open on July 4, 2024, when Judge Michael Urbanski moves to senior status. In November 2023, Senators Warner and Kaine recommended Yoon and Roanoke attorney Patice Holland as potential candidates for the seat. Yoon was ultimately chosen by the White House

Legal Experience

Yoon started her legal career at Crowell & Moring in Washington D.C. Among the notable cases that she handled at the firm, Yoon represented Rodney Edward Brown, who was convicted of first-degree and second-degree assault and of use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. See Brown v. State, 957 A.2d 654 (Md. Ct. Special Appeals 2008). Upon Yoon and her co-counsel’s arguments, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that the state, at trial, had failed to prove that a handgun was used in the offense, as the ballistics and forensic evidence only established that a firearm had been used, reversing that conviction. See id. at 674.

Between 2010 and 2016, Yoon worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia under U.S. Attorney Neil McBride, focusing primarily on the prosecution of financial crimes. Notably, Yoon was part of a team of attorneys prosecuting the “Mega Conspiracy”, a joint criminal action seeking to commit copyright infringement and money laundering, causing over $500 billion in loss. See United States v. Batato, 833 F.3d 413 (4th Cir. 2016).

Yoon has been working as in-house counsel for the past four years, starting with working for the University of Virginia and then, for the past year, for Capital One.

Political Activity

Yoon has a limited political donation history, with a single donation to Warner’s campaign in 2022.

Overall Assessment

Despite her youth, Yoon has handled many of the most complex kinds of cases that she is likely to see as a federal judge, if confirmed. Given the lack of controversy in her background, Yoon should likely see a routine and comfortable confirmation.

236 Comments

  2. Hank's avatar

    I think there was a post asking about the timeline to nominate a replacement for Rovner’s seat – for reference, Diane Wood announced her intent to go senior in December 2021, and her replacement John Lee (a district court judge) was announced in April 2022 and confirmed in September 2022. If they stick to that timeline and Maldonado is elevated, she might be announced sometime in June of this year.

    That should theoretically be enough time to go through the confirmation process and actually get confirmed, but you never know with Schumer. I’m more concerned with the process for the Florida and maybe the Tennessee circuit seat being dragged out in bad faith.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. keystone's avatar

    @Jamie

    Your suggestion of nominating Magistrate Jason Kidd to the Wilson seat is a good one. He seems to be young, talented, diverse, from the right geography, left, not controversial. I haven’t gone too deeply into the background but the most controversial things I can find are his age (he’s ~41ish, so prob a bit younger than the Rubio and Scott would like), he’s presided over a few Jan 6 cases, and his wife, who is also a lawyer and rising talent in the Orlando area, made a donation to Val Demmings’ senate campaign (not sure is Rubio will hold that against him). Wouldn’t mind see them push him even if it means getting him a district seat.

    Jason Mehta could also be a possibility. He’s a partner at Foley and Lardner. He’s from the Tampa area. I think he’s South Asian. He was under consideration for the MDFL US Attorney position that Roger Handberg got.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. keystone's avatar

    Sounds like in the Judiciary Committee meeting today, they pretty much skipped over the red state noms and spent the time going after Magistrate Robin Merriweather (no surprise).

    Sounds like Kennedy was hammering her over a case involving a man facing pedophilia charges. Kennedy accused her of releasing a pedophile. She explained that she recommended a temporary release of 21 days so that the man could receive a cancer treatment. Kenedy then pointed out that that decision then got reversed by the district court. Merriweather then explained that the man received his treatment when the reversal came about…”So under those new facts, the factual predicate for my temporary release decision no longer existed.” Kennedy then said that was not his interpretation and did not ask anything else about it.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Zack's avatar

    Yea..it was all but certain Meriweather would get all the attacks coming her way today.
    Given that it’s helped scuttled a couple of nominees, not surprised Republicans are going with the Democratic nominees love sex offenders garbage.
    Let’s hope they hold firm here.

    Liked by 1 person

    • tsb1991's avatar

      I missed that, since I spent the afternoon catching up with the confirmation hearing (had a lengthy call and then got lunch afterwards). As Dequan said, could be a straight up or down vote or a voice vote, hopefully it’s a voice vote for tomorrow that would free up tomorrow’s schedule and allow for confirmation of Sherriff before cloture for Kolar (if Lund’s confirmation is still voted on tomorrow, there’d be no net positive effect on the schedule.

      I know the two magic words in the Senate are “unanimous consent”, I know one of the magic phrases from watching throughout this Congress is “I know of no further debate on X nomination” (which will either mean using up all of the postcloture time ahead of schedule and proceeding right to the final vote or just ending debate altogether without needing a cloture vote).

      That’s twice this week where cloture was withdrawn on a nominee (an Amtrak Board of Director was confirmed last night without cloture, final vote was 96-1, really wish it wasn’t necessary and you could file it under “Nominees that could have been confirmed on a voice vote for $1000, Alex”.

      I highly doubt this is the case, but what if the threat of scheduling a vote at 6:15PM, as was the case today and last night a factor in getting cloture withdrawn on these nominees?

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        It’s fine if they hold off on Sherriff until Tuesday. The number one goal for EVERY Thursday should be a cloture vote for a circuit court nominee & confirmation vote the day they return the following week. The second goal should be sending cloture motions on Thursday to set up cloture votes the following week’s second day back. If we get cloture motions tomorrow, both goals will be accomplished. There simply should not be a Thursday that a circuit court nominee does not get a cloture vote until we are either out of nominees pending or unless there are attendance issues.

        Like

  7. keystone's avatar

    I kind of wonder if this is a Rep tactic to waste spots that could be allocated to voting for non Red state judges.

    I think Schumer needs to mix up the voting order a bit. For instance, for a day like today, schedule two evening votes – 1 for Sherriff cloture and the 2nd for Lund cloture. For tomorrow, I think it’s a mistake leading with Lund. Save her for end of day….I bet you’ll get your voice vote then.

    I also think they should try scheduling the Mariana Island nominee and the Republican Int’l trad noms for late end of day votes.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Gavi's avatar

      I genuinely don’t understand Schumer’s scheduling strategy, such that it is. Why is he filing cloture then withdrawing it on voice votable nominees?
      Majority leaders typically know what nominees don’t need a cloture vote or when nominees only need a voice vote. There’s a hotline email that majority leaders use to ask if there’s any objections to certain nominees. If no senator responds with an objection, the leader set that nominee up for a voice vote.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Dequan's avatar

    With today & tomorrow’s confirmation, once again the exception to my rule comes into play for the Indiana judges. I normally want them to get their commissions in order of age but not in this case.

    Cristal Brisco is younger than Lund but Brisco is clearly a Democrat while Lund is an outright Republican. Hopefully Biden repeats what he did last month with the two Oklahoma judges & sign Brisco’s commission one day & Lund another day later.

    Liked by 1 person

    • tsb1991's avatar

      Was going to mention I saw Kelly vote this afternoon. Wasn’t he out with COVID? Or did he get his positive test sometime last week?

      Unless there’s a breakthrough on the border/Ukraine bill, they should be able to keep chugging away at nominations next week. Since the Senate is off on Monday, any votes on next Wednesday would need to be setup for tomorrow, so we’ll see if any cloture motions are sent out.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. keystone's avatar

    After Sherriff, the only non-party vote district noms look like Baggio (OR) and Wang (Int’l Trade).

    I’m not counting Laroski and Manglona since I feel strongly that there are ways to force voice votes on those if you time the votes correctly.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. keystone's avatar

    Going back to the Wilson successor topic…

    I found a 2021 article about the applicants for the MDFL US Attorney position.
    https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2021/04/24/us-attorney-applicants-for-central-florida-offer-diversity-experience/

    In case anyone can’t access it, the 5 candidates were:

    1) Roger Handberg – who ultimately got it and is the current US Att.

    2) Matthew H. Perry – who is in his 60’s so we can skip him.

    3) Alexis Carter – ~40. Based in Orlando. Former US army officer with experience as prosecutor and criminal defense atny. Was a JAG officer. Was a former special asst US Attorney. He is a Black man.

    4) Stacie B. Harris ~44. From Tampa. She works for the US Justice Dept and is the Chief of the Special Victims Section, US Attorneys Office MDFL. She focuses on preventing child exploitation and human trafficking. In her application, she spoke a lot about what it’s like being both a black woman and prosecutor and the need to build a fairer and more equitable justice system.

    5) Jason Mehta ~41-ish. He was an attorney w US State dept. and worked as a fed prosecutor in Jacksonville. He’s now a parter in a big Tampa law firm. Seems to work a lot on white collar crime, particularly Health law case. He seems to be really well connected in the middle Florida bc he had two former MDFL US Attorneys and District Judge Bill Jung serve as references. On personal side, his father immigrated from India and his maternal grandmother fled Nazi Germany.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Embry Kidd being a sitting magistrate judge would make him a strong contender. Things my first time hearing of Alexis Carter but he also sounds like a phenomenal possibility. His military background may make him more likely to get both blue slips returned (Despite them not being needed). Both are in their low 40’s & would pair excellent with Andre Mathis as the only two Black men confirmed to any concert in the past decade.

      Like

  15. Ryan J's avatar

    Brisco filled a seat that the vacancy was announced over 4 years ago. Theresa Lazar Springmann announced in October 2019 that she would take senior status on January 23, 2021, her 65th birthday, not caring which party replaced her.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      Being a member of the Federalist Society would be on their SJC questionnaire. When in use to update Wikipedia I would add membership like that to their pages but I stopped updating Wikipedia last Summer when the whole removing their pages until they are confirmed mess started. So a lot of the newer pages probably aren’t as in depth as the older pages.

      Like

  18. jayem6624's avatar

    The 6 Lund Nays: 2x AL, 2x MO, 1x FL (Scott), 1x AK (Sullivan). Florida the only one to have worked out a package deal so far of those four States, and another one is likely coming with the Circuit seat now opening. Which of the other three is most likely? Or do you think all 3 will be in holding patterns until at least 2025?

    Liked by 1 person

  19. tsb1991's avatar

    Cloture filed not just on Mehalchick, but that EPA nominee who also didn’t get voted on earlier in the month. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but next week will also have the confirmation votes for Kolar and Sherriff. If Sherriff isn’t confirmed on Tuesday then he’ll fill in one of the Wednesday slots most likely. I’d be on the lookout for cloture filings Tuesday, we could get cloture filed on another appeals court nominee for Thursday (I’d guess Aframe is next in line), and maybe another cloture filing for Thursday.

    As far as attendance next week is concerned, right now the only question mark is Barrasso, whose wife sadly passed away from brain cancer. That could be why Schumer filed cloture on these two nominees if he’s expecting an attendance advantage (and might allow him to file cloture on some other difficult nominees on Tuesday, as I mentioned earlier).

    On a side note, during the Kolar cloture vote I did see Schumer and McConnell talking on the floor, not something you see too often, wonder what juicy subject they were talking about there…

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Dequan's avatar

    First of all I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that six Republicans voted against Lund. She is a card carrying, certified Republican. To the question at hand. I would bet the field versus any of the seats from the three states getting filled. But if I’m forced to choose one I guess I would go with Missouri. A combination of the number of vacancies combined with Hawley being on the SJC & seeing most other Republican senator on the committee getting nominees to their states might squeeze out a nominee or two.

    Sullivan started his own commission after Murkowski recommended four possibilities, including a U.S. attorney that Sullivan already voted for. He’s pulling a Ron Johnson & just stalling until after the election. And Alabama you can forget about. If Britt was the senior senator I would say there may be a shot. But with Tuberville as the senior senator, there’s a better chance of Ben Crump or even ME being nominated to the 11th circuit before any Alabama district court vacancy gets filled this year…. Lol

    Liked by 1 person

    • keystone's avatar

      Sad news regarding Sen. Barrasso’s wife. I think he also recently had a medical emergency.

      Regarding an Alaska nominee, is Rep. Peltola involved in the process? When a state has two senators of the opposite party from the president, they often lean on the state’s highest ranking member of his party to work with the senators, i.e. the Wyoming nom was actually courted by former governors Dave Freudenthal and Mike Sullivan and in Maine, Rep Pingree used to handle Obama judicial noms when the Collins and Snowe were the two senators.

      Senator’s Sullivan’s wife is 1/2 native and his mother-in-law, Mary Ann Fate, was a Native Alaskan activist. Peltola is from the Native Alaskan community. I wonder if there’s a Native candidate who might be interesting to Sullivan and Peltola and if they can agree on someone I suspect Murkowski would prob get on board.

      IDK – just an idea.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Gavi's avatar

      We’ve discussed this topic. As I said back then, I think all of MO’s fed courts could be entirely empty of all judges, active and senior, and those two senators would still not allow Biden to appoint a non-Chad Meredith judge.
      Senators aren’t always concerned about high vacancies as you would think. Look at New Jersey during Trump.
      I would absolutely love to be wrong, but I don’t see Biden nominating anyone for the MO bench. This is what I wished Durbin and Feinstein did during Trump. Thankfully, the CA senators didn’t give away all the vacancies like the IL senators did.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Yup, I would definitely choose the field over picking one of the three states. But I was trying to answer the question & choose one of the three states despite me personally thinking the answer will ultimately be none of the three. I just can’t see Alabama. I would have picked Alaska but now that Sullivan just started his own commission in the face of Murkowski, Missouri is just the one I can see out of the three but I choose none if I’m not forced to choose one.

        Like

    • CJ's avatar

      I completely agree with you that it’s ridiculous that 6 GOP Senators voted against Lund. What reason is there to oppose her considering that she was nominated by a Democratic president. It seems like these Senators have a chip on their shoulder. I know Hawley only votes for those who have a proven record of being against abortion (which shouldn’t really matter anymore because of the Dobbs decision). For the other Senators I have no idea why. I myself am a ideological centrist, and can understand both sides of the ideological spectrum, but there is nothing about this that I understand.

      Liked by 2 people

  21. raylodato's avatar

    Trying again…last try never showed up.

    Does anyone know when the Jan 10 nominees are going to be sent to the Senate? Seems like it’s taking a minute.

    Also, what’s with the slow pace of updating the U.S. Courts site? Don’t they have an intern who can watch C-SPAN and make changes at something more than the current glacial pace? Yeesh.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Gavi's avatar

      It’s worse than that. A federal appeals judge announced his retirement a month before that’s reflected on the website. I’ll give you a few days or so, maybe a week, if I’m feeling generous. But to not update the website a month after a retirement? That’s the longest delay I’ve ever heard of.

      Liked by 1 person

  22. Dequan's avatar

    This is officially the longest it’s taken for Biden to send nominations to the senate. It normally wouldn’t matter but out of the six, we only know which seat the nominee will nominated for in the case of Jasmine Yoon & Melissa R. DuBose. The WH site just released another batch of non judicial nominees so I’m still holding out hope the send the nominations to the senate today. But that hope fades with every passing hour & if not today it likely won’t be until mid next week.

    Like

  23. star0garnet's avatar

    Some nice progress. Within a week, the only nominees left that were announced before October should be Eumi Lee, Kasubhai, the IT pair and the Northern Marianas nominee. Now hopefully we see a new batch from the WH soon (and hopefully they get around to submitting their batch from two weeks ago). I wonder if Biden will get around to filling the tax court vacancies. Would be a shame if he didn’t.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. keystone's avatar

    So looks like we’re only getting the Kolar confirmation on Tuesday.

    Guessing Wed will be:
    – Sherriff confirmation,
    – Mehalchick cloture
    – Mehalchick conf,
    – EPA dude’s cloture
    – EPA dude’s conf.
    – Maybe someone else’s cloture

    Thursday (hopefully)
    – Someone else’s conf
    – Circuit nom cloture
    – Circuit nom confirmation

    Liked by 1 person

    • tsb1991's avatar

      If there’s six votes on Wednesday, it wouldn’t be cloture on a nominee that hasn’t had cloture filed on yet. When the Senate wrapped up C-SPAN had a vote on a veto override of some CRA resolution listed for the agenda next week, that might sneak it in there.

      Best case scenario for Thursday from a judges standpoint is that cloture is filed on a district and an appeals court nominee Thursday, the district court nominee could be confirmed then and then the cloture vote on the appeals court nominee would happen at the end. Once Kolar is confirmed the remaining pending appeals court nominees will have all been party-line SJC votes. The two nominees Schumer filed cloture on today are expected to be party-line votes, with Manchin likely voting against both of them (Mehalchick didn’t get voted on the week Crews got confirmed). Either he’s banking on full attendance from his side or having a bigger attendance advantage as Barrasso could be out due to the death of his wife. If that’s the case some party-line nominations could also be voted on Thursday.

      Liked by 1 person

  25. aangren's avatar

    Its been a while since i posted but it gladdens the heart to see others users agree and call out frank for being a republican hack and a troll, his nonsense smear against todd edelman being somehow pro crime is just republican propaganda, i have been calling out the guy for a long time, and the cowards in the white house as expected fell for it and withdrew edelman nomination. In comparison trump shoved every right wing unabashed ideologue and pro gop nominee down the throats of the opposing side.

    I dont keep a lot of attention with judicial nominations anymore because it just annoys me at biden timidity and gets me mad, i have moved on with my life in that regards. I expect more white males , pro prosecutor nominees and there is nothing i can do to change that by whining on here about it except withhold support in November which i will surely do, i will vote third party.

    One final thing for all the talk of judges, judicial rulings on this site, its so surprising to see virtually no discussion on here about the current border debacle ongoing with gregg abott vs biden and his outright challenging of federal law and authority and biden refusal to take decisive action in anyway and put the propagandist and charlatan abbott in his place, why no talk on that here? Its directly related to a recent supreme court ruling, involves federal law etc
    I suspect it is because even the biden bootlickers wont be able to spin his cowardice on this one, border patrol should be been at the border the very next hour cutting through those razor wires preventing access to migrants the second the ruling 5-4 of the supreme court came down. He isn’t because he is a cowardly man whose sole aim and focus is not to piss off republicans and fascist goons. Just imagine the reverse, a governor newsom or governor tina kotek of oregon waging this ”war” against the federal government during trump tenure, you can bet your every dime and savings trump would have taken decision action and used everypower he had under federal law to undermine and quell the challenge.
    In biden case he sits and folds his hands and let charlatans run the play and score the touchdown. Abott is still putting up razor wire as we speak to kill migrant children and women hoping for a better life in the U.S and biden sits on his hands because fox news and republicans will get mad if he for once does the right thing.

    Like

      • aangren's avatar

        You dont have to be a democrat to be progressive or left leaning politically, i will support a third party with the best liberal candidate because i cant in good faith support biden who i support in 2020 over sanders. Please why hasn’t anyone spoken about the dispute in TX vs biden regarding the razor wires? Just dont skip over that. It is the biggest news arguably right now on cable news and this site who prides itself on discussing the judiciary has not said anything on it at all.Why is that? So its fine to talk about a single district judge vacancy but the TX governor vowing to usurp federal law and not adhere to a supreme court decision isnt even relevant on this site here.
        Please spin this one , dequan you are welcome as well to chime in. This is literally on all cable and political shows why not on this so called site for discussing the judiciary?

        Like

      • Dequan's avatar

        @aangren

        Sure, I’ll be happy to chime in on the topics you brought up;

        As far as the Texas barbwire situation, you have to remember something. When you say Biden is being a coward because he is not doing anything, I’m sorry buddy but you just don’t know that. It’s been what, 4 days since the decision came down? The state of Alabama initially defied a Supreme Court order & guess what… They ended up following it. I don’t work in The White House but I’m willing to bet they are not just sitting on their hands saying ok, Governor Abbott isn’t doing what the SCOTUS told him to do so screw it, he wins. I just think your wrong on that one.

        On to Todd Edelman. This is where I have to drastically disagree with you on. Biden renominated plenty of more liberal nominees than him. He didn’t renominate this nominee. That probably has more to do with math then him being a coward. Biden is president, not dictator. He needs the US senate to confirm Edelman. If there were 50 senators marching down 1600 Pennsylvania Ave banging their fist on The Resolute Desk, demanding Edelman be renominated then guess what… He would have been renominated. It’s likely that more than one Democrat senator told the Whip they were thinking of voting no on him. Combine that with all 49 Republicans voting no & you have him not being renominated because of math, not because Biden is a coward.

        But here’s the good news. When he was first nominated, I remember you were not happy another White man in his mid 50’s was nominated to a bright blue seat. So you got your wish & we are likely to get a better nominee anyway.

        Liked by 3 people

    • keystone's avatar

      Hi @aangren. It’s good to see you’re well and still so full of passion. You always bring an interesting point of view.

      I agree with you, what Abbott is doing is horrendous and the fact that he’s openly defying a SCOTUS ruling and using succession language is terrifying. Not to mention the treatment of the migrants is inhumane (IMO).

      This is a hugely important issue but I don’t know what the magic fix is. Nor do I think this is the properly place to ideate on it.

      I took this opportunity to revisit the About page to see what Harsh’s intentions were for creating this blog/community. It says, “The Vetting Room is a legal blog dedicated to discussing, examining, and analyzing judicial nominations.” It’s true that many of us, myself included, do stray off topic at times, and we usually try to politely steer one another back to the topic at hand.

      You raise several interesting points in your post, that would fit within the blog’s scope, and that we could explore further, e.g. the Edelman narrative and how to avoid it with other nominees, how the Senate can be less timid with regards to getting nominees through, suggestions for nominees that will be more in line with your liking. But I’m unsure if there is a specific item within those topics that interests you.

      Lastly, I want to say that not everyone is going to love every single nominee. We aren’t all going to agree on picks or tactics. That’s OK. We can agree to disagree. I think it would be appreciated if we could lay off the name calling. We don’t have to be friends. Frankly, we don’t really even have to be nice. But I do think we need to at least be respectful and civil.

      Happy to have you as a part of the community.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Gavi's avatar

        aangren has been using this blog longer than most, and certainly longer than the newer folks here, so I can see how it can be annoying for one of them to tell him the purpose of the blog he’s been using long before their arrival.
        And I am always the loudest voice against straying off the judiciary here, but I notice that folks usually only join me when aangren posts. Why is that so? He raises great and germane issues, especially with the defiance in Texas.

        Liked by 1 person

    • Frank's avatar

      You want to take politics and the border, go to Daily Kos. Biden will do things the way he knows how, which is to compromise. If you wanted the most liberal candidate in 2020, you weren’t very smart to have voted for him (although I doubt that you really did). I actually do agree that there have been quite a few too many prosecutors for my liking being nominated as of late, but that doesn’t mean that Biden should be nominating people whose decisions directly resulted in people dying as was the case with Edelman.

      Liked by 2 people

      • aangren's avatar

        The republican hack(not my words other users who have noticed that frank is a troll and advocates pro GOP propaganda on this board,) once again falsely labelled todd edelman pro crime and i will call out his lies and bullshit every time, edelman was an outstanding judicial nominee and was in no way pro criminal, but yet frank has no issue with GOP ”PRO CRIME” judges giving lenient sentences to jan6 insurrectionists no diatribes about that.
        This isn’t daily kos? fine i will keep a keen eye on this blog and the second frank or anyone else strays a minutia off topic to talk anything non judicial nomination related i will blatantly call it out, if people want to act like hypocrites on here and only complain against critics they dont like so be it, as gavi pointed out. Anything barring judical nominations is off base. Got it. Just dont be hypocrites and twist yourself into pretzels when you get called out on it

        Liked by 1 person

    • Aiden's avatar

      Agreed! I expected Dana Douglas to be a moderate centre left at best. However her showing really liberal tendencies so far has being great. Even listening to her oral arguments has being enjoyable. Hopefully Ramirez turns out better than we expected.

      I feel like seeing Judges such as Koh, Douglas and Benjamin turn out more liberal than expected has being really good.

      However I feel like Judge Lee and H.A Thomas aren’t as liberal as I’d hoped.
      It also sucks that Pryor is to the right of who she replaced so far.

      Though overall very happy with nominations. I think just imagining what would have happened to the circuits if Trump won a second term in 2020, makes me ill.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Aiden's avatar

        @Ryan J.

        Definitely not Eunice Lee should have clarified that. She’s being probably one of the most liberal in the progressive bloc.
        I think perhaps the Connecticut Trans Athelete case showed that along with a few other cases

        I was attempting to refer to John Lee on the 7th.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Dequan's avatar

        While I don’t follow post confirmation anywhere near as much as pre confirmation, this is what I have gathered so far from Biden’s circuit court judges.

        More liberal than I thought – Eunice Lee, Veronica Rossman, Toby Heytens, Lucy Koh, Florence Pan, Dana Douglas & DeAndrea Benjamin.

        Less liberal than I thought – Jennifer Sung, Holly Thomas, Arianna Freeman & Doris Pryor.

        Everyone else is about where I expected them so far. Of course, it’s still early for all Biden judges & things can change, that’s just what I’ve gathered so far. I expect Sung, Thomas & Freeman to become more liberal as time passes. Particularly as the 3rd & 9th get more liberal with additional Biden judges if he wins re-election. As for Ramirez, I think so low of her being picked for the 5th, it wouldn’t take much for her to surpass my expectations. Kolar is a wild card. I was very surprised when I read on his SJCQ that the White House, not Indiana senators reached out to him. With him working in Durbin’s office when he got out of law school, I am hoping he is a closet liberal but knew he was in Indiana so didn’t want to make too big of waves until he became a federal judge.

        Liked by 2 people

  29. Aiden's avatar

    @Dequan

    In regards to your more liberal than expected;
    Veronica Rossman being the most progressive member of the 10th did surprise me, though I knew she was going to be very liberal.

    As I said before Eunice Lee has being great.
    However her opinion in the Purdue Pharmacy release case did concern me .

    Agree with you on Toby Heytens.

    Florence Pan, is about what I expected. I know she wrote a concurrence arguing for a much narrower interpretation of I believe the 4th amendment. Even promoting a rebuttal concurrence from moderate liberal Sri Srinivasan. So clearly she’s no staunch liberal. However apart from the obstruction cases she hasn’t had any massive ideological cases so we will see.

    Jennifer Sung:
    Is probably the most progressive on the 9th circuit, perhaps tied with Roopali Desai.
    I think we will see more when there’s dissents in all Biden appointee panels. Like Desai’s progressive dissent from Koh and H Thomas’s opinion. However Sung has being extraordinarily liberal, it’s what I expected .

    Arianna Freeman: The 3rd circuit doesn’t have a lot of ideological cases nor published opinions. Her joining the conservatives in the gun case showed more libertarian than conservative colours.
    I would say so far she’s being pretty liberal. PFAW have covered a few of her liberal memorandums and opinions.

    I agree with you on Holly Thomas and Doris Pryor. Pretty disappointed by those.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Dequan's avatar

    Looking at the senate calendar, I really think Schumer could clear all pending judicial nominees on the floor by Easter recess. That’s including throwing in other items like the budget, Ukraine/Israel funding, non-judicial nominees & everything else that can come up needing a vote. Here’s the weekly schedule through Easter;

    Jan 28th – 3 days
    February 4th – 3 days
    February 11th – Recess week
    February 18th – Recess week
    February 25th – 4 days
    March 3rd – 3 days
    March 10th – 4 days
    March 17th – 3 days
    March 24th – Recess week
    March 31st – Recess week

    Nine of the pending nominees are from red states. Perhaps if they can get some mix of voice votes & bypassing cloture votes, going straight to confirmation votes, the end of March is possible to clearing the deck of pending floor nominees. It would be nice if Schumer used one of the 3-day weeks to clear the deck of circuit court nominees or do the Thursday/First day of the next week cloture/confirmation vote combo for three of the weeks.

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      • Dequan's avatar

        I understand being nice but it’s ridiculous for Schumer to hold off calling up nominees because a Republican senator is out. I understand they have been playing nice by not forcing the entire 30 hour cloture time for most circuit court nominees but I would tell them they can pick one nominee to wait until the senator is back but the rest is fair game.

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      • tsb1991's avatar

        Weren’t some of the more contentious nominees confirmed last summer when Tim Scott was out campaigning? IIRC Ho, Choudhury, Merle, and Bloomekatz were able to be confirmed without the VP as Scott was out of town.

        On a side note, not that it mattered for Thursday’s votes, but I noticed Baldwin, Klobuchar, and Smith were all out. Turns out they were with the President promoting a bridge replacement funded by the infrastructure law on the Minnesota/Wisconsin state line (Evers and Walz were at the event as well).

        Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Very nice. I said last year I expected at least two more CDCA vacancies based on the ages of the judges. We’re at three now. That’s great news two fold.

      One, because I want as many vacancies while we have Butler. Second, with the number of vacancies we have had on the court, there should be a running list of runner ups that make it easier to get a nominee quicker. As I stated a couple weeks ago I truly hope Bryant Yang is one of those nominees. There are so many great choices.

      Liked by 1 person

      • keystone's avatar

        What’s interesting is that it seems to be the younger senior status eligible judges who are going out.

        Those 6 CDCA judges born during the 1940’s all seem to be staying put for now (even the Clinton one).

        Feeling more bullish about Cormac Carney going senior when he hits eligibility this spring.

        Liked by 1 person

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