Former Sotomayor clerk Jeannette Vargas has spent virtually her entire legal career on the civil side of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which would serve her well if confirmed to be a federal district court judge on that court.
Background
Vargas received her B.A. from Harvard College in 1995 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000. After law school, Vargas clerked for Justice (then Judge) Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, before joining Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett. In 2002, Vargas joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, serving as Deputy Chief of the Civil Division since 2016.
History of the Seat
Vargas has been nominated to the vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated on August 9, 2023 by Judge Paul Gardephe’s move to senior status.
Political Activity
Vargas has made occasional political donations throughout her career, including donations to Biden and Hillary Clinton.
Legal Career
Vargas has spent virtually her entire legal career with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she worked in the civil division (currently serving as Deputy Chief). Among the notable matters she handled, Vargas represented the United States in litigation of Chrysler following the auto bailout in 2008. See In re Chrysler LLC., 576 F.3d 108 (2d Cir. 2009). Vargas also represented the Central Intelligence Agency in defending against Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) claims brought by Amnesty International in seeking information about interrogation techniques. See Amnesty Int’l USA v. CIA, 728 F. Supp. 2d 479 (S.D.N.Y. 2010).
In another notable case, Vargas sued a registered sex offender who was employed as a superintendent in various apartment buildings for violating the Fair Housing Act by subjecting numerous tenants to sexual harassment and sexual extortion. See United States v. Barnason, 852 F. Supp. 2d 367 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).
Relating to criminal cases, Vargas also worked to defend against habeas actions challenging denials of release from the federal parole commission. See, e.g., Crutchfield v. United States Parole Comm’n, 438 F. Supp. 2d 372 (S.D.N.Y. 2006).
Vargas’ work has also involved arguing a number of appeals. For example, Vargas defended against suits brought by plaintiffs arguing that they were entitled to student loan forgiveness under the Higher Education Act of 1965, arguing that Judge Loretta Preska correctly dismissed the suits. See De La Mota v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 413 F.3d 71 (2d Cir. 2005). However, the Second Circuit reversed, finding that the plaintiffs were presumptively entitled to the student loan forgiveness. See id. at 74.
Most notably, Vargas represented the United States in defending successfully against FOIA claims brought by the New York Times seeking disclosure of CIA training programs in Syria and CIA treatment of detainees post-2001. See New York Times v. United States Dep’t of Justice, 939 F.3d 479 (2d Cir. 2019); New York Times v. CIA, 965 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 2020).
Overall Assessment
Coming from a fairly conventional background without a record of controversial statements, Vargas’ biggest enemy for confirmation is likely the Senate’s limited calendar. As long as Democrats continue to prioritize judicial confirmations, Vargas should be confirmed in due course.
The Vetting Room 
Finally a new write up to end the record breaking number of comments on the last one… Lol
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So far, Vargas seems to be a conventional nominee with an uncontroversial background. If she performs well in the confirmation hearing, Republicans won’t go out of their way to stop her.
I wonder what her ties to Kirsten Gillibrand are? Vargas is from New York City, while Gillibrand is from upstate New York. But Gillibrand recommended her.
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Although her donations have been pretty limited, her hubby, who is finance guy, has a pretty lengthy donation history going back to 2006. All to Dem candidates.
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Good find on your part. Who is her husband?
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Vargas seems like a pretty traditional and well qualified nominee for a Democratic president, albeit with pretty traditional credentials. Nonetheless, she should be confirmed before the end of the year barring something unexpected coming up in her background.
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Unfortunate that this may be the type of nominee we get from blue states going forward given Manchin’s pledge.
Now I wonder how soon we’ll get a new nominee for the seat in WDNY that Holland withdrew from.
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I also wonder whether that nominee will be recommended by Gillibrand?
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@Mitch To this and your earlier comment
Schumer and Gillibrand do not appear to divide their recommendations on a regional basis. They do so on a 4:1 ratio, with the senior senator getting the much larger share. That’s why we occasional get a Gillibrand recommendation for a downstate vacancy, like Natasha Merle.
Holland was a Schumer recommendation. I would assume that he’ll keep his place and be the one to recommend a new candidate. Western progressives who care about identity stuff have been pushing for a black woman.
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I believe over the past month or so, Biden has reduced the number of districts that have never had a person of color by two more, knocking the WDVA & Rhode Island off the list. The number is now under 20. I believe the WDNY is still one that has never had a person of color so the Holland withdrawal gives them another chance to correct that.
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Biden really shouldn’t play it safely in the way you are speculating he might. We got a lot of confirmations done with a 50-50 senate while HAVING TO rely on Manchin.
Biden should just adopt the approach that we have a 50-50 senate again….WITHOUT having to rely on Joe Manchin this time. That’s actually an upgrade! Just conceptualize Manchin as a useless & unnecessary appendage at this point.
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@Ads I like the way you think but that’s not really the Biden we’ve been getting in 2024. And the closer we get to the elections, the less likely that Biden will appear. I think in blue states, especially NY, it’s safe to expect more and more candidates who’d look like those nominated by Republican presidents with Dem senators’ blue slips.
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Ohhhh.. it looks like Vargas wrote some pop culture reviews for the Harvard Crimson.
I’m just imagining Senator Kennedy saying, “I see that while at Harvard, you reviewed an album by the rock and/or roll band (dramatic pause) U2. Am I pronouncing that correctly?……
Followed by Senator Blackburn asking, “You wrote about so-called ‘Grunge’ culture. Is that when you became a Marxist?”
https://www.thecrimson.com/writer/5271/Jeannette_A._Vargas/
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I literally imagined that in Kennedy and Blackburn’s voices lol.
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Kiel received his commission yesterday.
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I’m now confident in saying there’s another marked change to the Art. III nominees we’ve gotten with Siskel as WH Counsel: nominees are now far likelier to have a Democratic donation history.
Under Remus, 41 (39%) had a D donation history and 64 (61%) had no donation history.
Under Delery, 29 (37%) had a D donation history, 1 (1%; John Frank Murphy) had an R donation history, and 48 (62%) had no donation history.
Under Siskel, 28 (70%) have had a D donation history, 2 (5%; Leibowitz and Theeler) have had a mixed donation history, 3 (8%; John David Russell, Rankin, and Bazis) have had an R donation history, and 7 (18%) have had no donation history.
Yes, the nominees may (may, not conclusively) now be a more diverse version of Obama or Clinton’s blue state cohorts, but it does inspire confidence in his ability to get as many seats filled as possible. The results (17 nominees navigated through double GOP blue slips; the admin’s first batch of Tax Court nominees) speak to that already, but this speaks to a zero-sum approach that may be what we need to ensure that as few opportunities as possible are left on the table.
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IMO, we need to fill all the remaining blue state vacancies that we can and if we can get deals on red state ones, fine.
If not, so be it.
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WOW… Really good info @starOgarnrlet as always.
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I hope after Kevin Ritz has his hearing, his confirmation is pushed through ASAP if only so Gibbons won’t change her mind if nothing else but also so we can get a liberal nominee through for Stranch’s seat in enough time because I don’t think a nominee for her seat happens until Ritz is confirmed.
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Oh absolutely agree @Zack Jones. While I think all circuit court nominees should be put up for a vote the following eeek after being voted to the floor, Ritz should be priority number one. And just like Berner, his commission should be signed the same day he is confirmed. Getting Gibbons off the bench is key to who is nominated to the second seat. Since Blackburn has made it clear she won’t vote for ANYBODY to the left if Chad Meredith, mine as well get half of her leverage (The other is the WDTN seat) out the way.
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What leverage does Blackburn have over the Gibbons seat? She’s already refused to return a blue slip, so there’s nothing else she can do.
No TN district court vacancies are going to be filled during this vacancy, so any time thinking of the WDTN seat is just a waste.
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Don’t be silly, Gibbons isn’t going to change her mind when it’s her former clerk being nominated to fill her seat – from Blackburn’s statement opposing Ritz, it looks like the score is Gibbons: 1, Blackburn: 0.
I doubt Ritz is going to move quickly simply because he’ll probably be a party-line confirmation – other than KBJ to SCOTUS, have the Dems ever moved quickly on a circuit nominee? I’m not convinced that Schumer knows what ASAP even means.
And why would the Stranch replacement depend on Ritz being confirmed first? I’m sure Blackburn’s going to use that faulty logic as an argument to delay things, but if Blackburn’s not going to return a blue slip anyways, why would her BS matter?
Nevertheless, given that Stranch announced so late, I’d be surprised if we get a nominee before June or July. With Menendez’s trial taking up all of May/probably some of June, I don’t see Ritz getting confirmed before then unless a Republican is willing to support him (thanks Manchin for making that even less likely than before).
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Until the Republican appointed Gibbons is off the bench, that’s plenty of leverage. Blackburn could promise to recommend another law clerk of Gibbons if she holds off 9 more months to leave the bench. Maybe one she likes even more than Ritz that was too conservative for Biden to nominate. And she could promise both home state senators support. I’m not saying that is going to happen, but until Gibbons is off the bench that is a possibility.
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What you described is Gibbons having leverage, not Blackburn – if Gibbons wanted someone more conservative that the Biden WH wouldn’t nominate, she would’ve just gone senior under Trump or waited until after the 2024 election, when R’s are likely to hold the senate. And accusing Gibbons of engaging in backroom deals, as Blackburn did in her statement, is hardly going to endear Blackburn to Gibbons.
I’d love it if Ritz were expedited, but that’s not realistic – without a home-state senator pushing for his confirmation, I imagine it’ll take forever. Just look at how long it took to confirm Mathis (and also Bloomekatz, who had 1 blue slip).
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Maybe Gibbons didn’t want to go senior under Trump. Somebody months ago mentioned Gibbons may have health issues so that could be the root of her decision. But 9 months is a relatively short time so Blackburn recommending somebody Gibbons wants more than Ritz is a possibility. Maybe Gibbons has a child that is a Tennessee attorney for example.
The root of the issue is do I trust Republicans wouldn’t do something to convince Gibbons to hold off leaving the bench for 9 months (And counting). If they did convince Gibbons to change her mind, whatever they did to make that happen wouldn’t even crack the top 20 nefarious things they have done over the past few decades to keep seats open. Hell it wouldn’t even be in the top 30.
You have to expand your mind when we are talking about what Republicans will do when it comes to the courts. Trusting there is no way Gibbons can be convinced to change her mind isn’t realistically looking at the Republican Party I’ve been looking at over my lifetime.
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Only four of Biden’s circuit judges have been confirmed after less than a month on the senate calendar:
Desai, 7 days
Robinson, 11 days
Eunice Lee, 23 days
Stark, 28 days
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All that still points to Gibbons having the leverage, not Blackburn – and I agree with you that the Republicans can’t be trusted, which is why I suspect Blackburn tried all of that already and was unsuccessful. Hence the public accusations about Gibbons having some backroom deal with the WH.
I fully agree that the WH should prioritize this so Gibbons will take senior status. I just (1) doubt that’s likely given how Dems have never been strategic about confirmations, and (2) see no basis to go on appeasing Blackburn because she holds some magical sway over Gibbons (when her public swipe at Gibbons indicates otherwise).
Interesting that Kennedy of all the Republicans is the only senator to have supported a nominee with no blue slips (Mathis). If anything, Ritz seems more conservative than Mathis just by his resume – yet I would be shocked if Kennedy does something with Ritz. Manchin’s little stunt certainly doesn’t help.
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Desai, 7 days – Sinema recommended her.
Robinson, 11 days – The most senior senator of the SJC at the time recommended her.
Eunice Lee, 23 days – The majority leader recommended her.
Stark, 28 days – He is from the president’s home state.
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Desai and Stark make sense to me: Sinema was backing Desai/in the middle of the IRA negotiations and Stark was a boring white guy nominated to the non-controversial Federal Circuit.
Robinson and Lee are more interesting – Dequan’s reasons don’t explain much b/c (1) it’s not like Leahey had much influence at that point (certainly not more than Durbin, and the IL CA7 nominees weren’t processed as quickly), and (2) the other NY noms to CA2 didn’t move particularly fast (even Alison Nathan, who had more bipartisan support than Lee).
I’m disappointed but not surprised that Schumer didn’t expedite the nominees who replaced Republican / conservative judges – neither Chung (replacing Smith on CA3), Kahn (replacing Cabranes on CA2), or Aframe (replacing Howard on CA1) have moved particularly quickly. Of those, I believe Cabranes is the only one whose senior status was conditional, and Kahn was pretty non-controversial. That’s unlikely to be true for Ritz, so I’m bracing myself for him not getting confirmed until the fall.
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Zack, I think the senate will do precisely that. Hopefully Ritz can be confirmed in May/June.
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@Dequan, exactly.
Sans Ilana Rovner, there isn’t a single Republican Circuit court judge I would trust to keep their word until they’re off the bench, Gibbons included.
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Especially when we could possibly have a Republican president with a Republican senate majority in less time than it takes for a woman to get pregnant & have a baby. Too much leverage & anything should be done to fast track anybody replacing a Republican appointee. Particularly one that based her senior status on the confirmation of their successor instead of an actual date.
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After Ritz’s (hopeful) confirmation, who do you guys think will be the swing vote (which in the 6th CCA’s case would make the Circuit evenly split) on the 6th CCA?
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Griffin would likely be the swing vote after Ritz’s confirmation – he’s pretty conservative, but occasionally has a libertarian bent and seems less conservative on some criminal issues than Gibbons. I don’t see it making a huge difference – the Sixth split 9 R – 7 D if Ritz is confirmed, the Dems would still need one more vote to overrule a conservative panel decision en banc. The benefit, however, is that it will be harder for the Trump appointees to overrule the rare liberal panel decision en banc.
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https://fedsoc.org/contributors/erin-hawley-1
Yikes, I did not know Josh Hawley is married to the lawyer who argued at the Supreme Court today.
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Yup, & she argued the case in the Texas district court in front of the lone judge that could have heard the case. That judge donated to senator Hawley’s campaign. Another reason judge shopping needs to end. She actually went on MSNBC after the hearing this morning which surprised me.
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The 5th Circuit is stocked with right wing nuts so far out there that even the Robert’s Court doesn’t buy all of their nonsense
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TBH I thought Katy Tur went really easy on her. Hawley tried to make it sound that this was not a big deal to repeal the 2016/2021 FDA regulations, the first question I would have asked is that she initially asked that the abortion pill be taken entirely off the market.
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I thought Katty Tur did a good job. When she asked Hawley has any of the doctors that are part of the brief actually been forced to perform an abortion against their will, of course Hawley did everything but answer the question. I was screaming in my head she didn’t answer the freakin question. Tur followed up right after I said that to myself & asked her again. She was nice in the sense she congratulated her at the beginning & end of the interview on it being her first argument in front of the US Supreme Court…
In other news (Trigger warning for those who dare to read a sentence on this blog not directly related to the judiciary… Lol) but NBC News finally reversed their decision from last week to hire Ronna McDaniel. The decision shouldn’t have been made in the first place but I am happy they realized how disastrous the decision was reversed course.
(NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after network’s anchors launch unprecedented on-air rebellion | CNN Business)
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Yeah absolutely on McDaniel. She was apparently involved in Trump’s fake elector scheme, although possibly unknowingly.
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“married”
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How so? Seems like you are implying that it is a sham marriage in some way…
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No, no. I’m sure it’s as solid of a marriage as Mr. and Mrs. Larry Craig and the Tim Scott and his soon to be bride.
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TBH, this is the first time I’ve heard of those kind of rumors regarding Hawley.
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Schydlower received his commission today.
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Good job once again Biden. Gonzalez is older so had he signed both commissions the same day, Gonzalez would have had seniority. I don’t think Gonzalez is a Republican, but Schydlower is a certified Democrat, therefore he should be the one with the seniority.
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Murkowski’s comments about possibly leaving the GOP is worth paying attention to. The big question that is whether Alaska’s Top 4/RCV gets repealed this November. If it does, Murkowski is toast in a GOP primary, and she’ll have to run as an independent or Democrat. The other thing is that Murkowski no longer has Mitch McConnell around, she was close with McConnell. With him gone, things may change on that front.
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I wasn’t aware Alasa had Rank Choice Voting on the ballot this November. IF so, Democrats should be investing to make sure voters are educated. We now have Murkowski in the senate & a Democrat as the sole At Large US Houe member because of it. Rank Choice needs to be expanded, not taken away from states that already have it. Sullivan might even be on notice next time up if there is a viable candidate to run against him with Rank Choice.
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Are they close? Didn’t McConnell try to oust her by backing a more conservative nominee, so she ran as a write-in Candidate and beat the official Republican and Dem noms?
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Quite the opposite actually. McConnell has backed her in the primary every time and in 2022 spent money supporting her and attacking her MAGA opponent in the Top 4. The right was really pissed off about this, and thought that the money could have been used against Democrats instead.
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I can’t remember who McConnell backed in the 2010 primary but I remember there being bad blood between them for a while once the main election started
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/09/murkowski-announces-write-in-bid-042353
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I’m very dubious that Gibbons would renege on her resignation. She’s relatively moderate for a GOP nominee, hires a lot of liberal clerks, could have retired under Trump but chose not to but retired under Biden. It seems to me that she wanted to leave under Biden.
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Oh, really?! There’s been rumors about that for years.
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Gibbons swore Kevin Ritz in when he became the US Attorney in Memphis. Generally you only do that for someone you think very highly of – and normally the Chief District judge swears in the US attorney in their particular district, not a Circuit judge (who isn’t the chief). It’s pretty clear this is who she wanted to succeed her, so I doubt Blackburn will be able to pull a fast one and get her to delay retirement until a Republican wins back the White House.
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Just read an article about the abortion drug mifepristone case argued before the SCOTUS today. Seems like even some of the more conservative judges appeared skeptical of the arguments on behalf of the anti-abortion folks trying to have the drug banned.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar strikes me as being a very impressive advocate before the court. Would love to see her on the D.C. Circuit some day…
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I would really love to see Karen Henderson retire or leave the bench anyway possible. Elizabeth Prelogar would be the front runner in my mind. Biden has already put a Black woman, an AAPI judge & the first Hispanic on the court. Two of those three really aren’t viable for SCOTUS in a second Biden term based on their age so I bet the next vacancy he got to fill would be somebody that would be SCOTUS ready on day one once they got commissioned. Prelogar fits the bill today as Solicitor General, let alone after being a judge on the second highest court in the land even for one day.
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Would love to see Dale Ho on the DC Circuit but Prelogar would be great too.
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Has a solicitor general ever been appointed to the DC Circuit (or any circuit)? Neither Trump nor Obama appointed their SGs, and they both had multiple vacancies on CADC to fill. I wonder if SGs see being a circuit judge as a demotion of sorts after being the “Tenth Justice” and regularly arguing before SCOTUS – I can’t imagine an administration would say no if its SG asked for the appointment.
Henderson isn’t leaving the bench willingly under a Democratic president, so speculating about when she’ll be physically incapable of continuing is a waste of time. The next Dem judge on CADC to become eligible for senior status is Pillard, and that won’t be until 2027—Dems would have to win the presidency and the senate in 2024 and win the senate again in 2026 (a Biden midterm). That’s not impossible, but also not likely enough to warrant much discussion this far out.
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It’s been a while.
Direct appointments:
1892: William Howard Taft to the 6th
1903: John Richards to the 6th
1920: Alexander King to the 5th
1956: Simon Sobeloff to the 4th
Delayed appointments:
Charles Fahy stepped down 1945, helped form UN, appointed to DC in 1949
Walter Cummings stepped down 1953, rejoined his old firm, appointed to 7th in 1966
Robert Bork stepped down 1977, returned to teaching, appointed to DC in 1982
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@Hank
A Black woman had never been put in the SCOTUS before Biden did it. A Hispanic had never been put on the DC Circuit or 7th before Biden did it. I don’t think saying a Solicitor General had ever been put in any circuit is a reason to think Biden can’t be the first president to do it. Particularly when Elizabeth Prelogar is so qualified & in her early 40’s. But of course to your point the main thing is getting a vacancy first. Then we can see.
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@Star interesting that it used to be somewhat of a thing for SGs to be appointed to the circuit courts, but not anymore.
@Dequan of course the WH can nominate whoever it wants (as long as traitors like CCM and Rosen don’t mess it up), but I bet they would’ve put Prelogar on CADC instead of Pan/Garcia if she really wanted it (she probably couldn’t have been the nominee over Childs because of Clyburn, but although there was advocacy from some Hispanic groups about a Latino on CADC, the WH has unfortunately ignored Hispanic groups for the most part—ex. the border deal). It’s very possible that Prelogar preferred being Solicitor General to a circuit judge, and the WH isn’t going to nominate someone to a job they don’t want.
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I was looking at the senate calendar to see when some of the circuit nominees could realistically be confirmed – seems like Aframe’s the only likely circuit confirmation for the next two-ish months.
For Maldonado, I assume she’ll be held over for a week and reported out of the SJC no earlier than April 18. The senate is out the following week, and if she doesn’t get confirmed the week of April 29 (highly unlikely), then she might be waiting a while because Menendez’s trial (if it isn’t continued) starts the week after, on May 6, and is expected to run 4-6 weeks. So we’re probably looking at late June at the earliest if she gets no Republican/Manchin support. Schumer has pretty much never moved quickly, but with no other circuit nominees (assuming Aframe is confirmed) and this being Durbin’s nominee, perhaps she’ll get confirmed in June/July.
For Ritz, it looks like he will have his SJC hearing on April 17. The senate is out the week after, and if they hold him over for a week (as I’m sure they will), the earliest he can be voted out of committee is May 9. Menendez will already be out for trial then, and assuming Ritz gets no bipartisan support b/c of the lack of blue slips, the earliest they could vote on Ritz is also late June. Without any senator pushing for his confirmation like Durbin will be with Maldonado, I’d be surprised if Schumer moves on Ritz before the August recess.
The next possible circuit nominee is probably for the Maine seat on CA1 because Kayatta announced his taking senior status back in November 2023 (Wynn/Wilson/Stranch all announced in January 2024) and the interviews with King/Golden/Pingree were scheduled for the beginning of January. It’d be great to get that nominee in the next batch so the person could have their SJC hearing in May (and with Collins’s support, not be delayed by Menendez’s absence), but I’m skeptical that Collins will sign off on someone so quickly—especially since Manchin basically just gave her his vote on all judicial nominees (ugh).
As for the other circuit vacancies (including what I assume will be the CA3 vacancy once Cortez Masto forces the WH to withdraw Mangi), I just hope the nominees are announced in time for them to have SJC hearings in September. The senate is off for October, and I highly, highly doubt the Dems are organized enough to confirm someone who has an SJC hearing in November (and wouldn’t be reported out of committee until early December, leaving only 2 weeks for confirmation).
None of the above accounts for what happens if Menendez is found guilty – does it take a 2/3 vote in the senate to vote him out? I wouldn’t put it past McConnell/the Republicans to vote against expelling Menendez if Menendez goes independent/stops voting for Dem nominees. And if Menendez is expelled, how long would Phil Murphy take to appoint a replacement?
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As for the last part, I would expect Murphy to name a Menendez replacement as quick as Newsom names Butler. Maybe even quicker. I would hope he names Kim just to give him seniority over any new senator elected in November. He could name his wife. If so, at least she will have a parking spot for life in the senate parking garage for her months long service. But I agree with you. Republicans likely wouldn’t provide the votes to expel Menendez.
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Good summary. A lot’s just gonna come down to whether they can pair up two if not four of the circuit nominees for hearings. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Menendez is able to spend a fair bit of May in DC; he’ll only be in Manhattan.
Would be appreciated if somebody could repost the potential hearing dates that somebody posted a while back.
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@Hank, great summary, thanks.
@Star – this is all from Joe, the scheduling expert:
April 10 or 17 – nominees needed by March 13 or 20
May 1 or 8 – nominees needed by April 3 or 10
May 15 or 22 – nominees needed by April 17 or 24
June 5 – nominees needed by May 8
June 18 or 20 – nominees needed by May 14-16
July 10 – nominees needed by June 12
July 24 or 31 – nominees needed by June 26 or July 3
September 11 – nominees needed by August 14
September 25 – nominees needed by August 28
November 13 – nominees needed by October 16
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@Gavi
Thanks for reposting. Looks like 9 hearing slots left for nominees that haven’t already been announced. That around 45 slots for nominees. I think we are down to about 19 blue state district court vacancies & a handful circuit court vacancies if you count Mangi’s likely backfill.
We would need about 20 red state nominees & additional vacancies currently not announced to max out those hearing slots. My guess is we will be disappointed for a couple of those 9 potential hearing slots & have some missed batches. I just hope we get enough batches to fill the next 5 or 6 so at least if well there are any number of surprise vacancies, they still have slots available to get them hearings towards Election Day.
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Dequan, my guess is we’re going to miss a few hearings as well. I think the likeliest candidates are one or both of the September hearings. The week of Juneteenth may be a candidate as well unless they want to do another Thursday hearing.
That hearing in November after the elections would likely only be for a surprise vacancy that opens up very late in the year. It might only have 1 or 2 district nominees in it.
Realistically we should be hoping to more or less be caught up by the end of July (which means we need nominees by the end of June).
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There are 5 circuit vacancies (assuming Mangi is withdrawn), so with 19 district court vacancies, we’re looking at 24 more confirmations. That’s probably 5 hearings, maybe 6 tops if they have small batches.
I suspect we might only have one SJC hearing a month at this point – I hope they’ll probably have at least one hearing in September because I’d be surprised if the NC/FL senators don’t take at least 6 months to sign off on a circuit nominee (if they do at all).
Has anyone done the math and figured out the fastest a red-state circuit nominee with blue slips has been announced? I think someone previously pointed out that Mathis took about 180 days with no blue slips – I’m curious if getting Republican senators’ buy-in tends to slow things down even more (which I suspect).
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@Hank
We’ve only seen nine red state circuit nominees for eight seats, so not a huge sample size. From vacancy announcement to nominee announcement:
174 days: Pryor
183: Mathis
215: Ritz
313: Benjamin
398: Douglas
406: Kolar
456: Ramirez
550: Wamble
902: Federico (205 from Wamble’s expiring)
If the WH goes with a 180-day timeline for the Wynn, Wilson, and Stranch seats, we’d be looking at July nominations. A 210-day timeline would put them in August or close to it. So I’d guess there’s a good chance we’ll actually get September hearings, perhaps after skipping them in July. The WH could probably announce all but a few of the blue state district nominees today if it needed to, so that too would line up well with skipping July.
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@Star – thanks, super helpful!
I’d just add Chung, who (I believe?) was the only purple state circuit nominee to get a Republican senator (Toomey)‘s blue slip – looks like that took 220 days. A similar timeline for the Maine seat would mean that a nominee isn’t announced until June (if Collins doesn’t drag things out even longer).
This confirms my suspicion that negotiating with red-state senators tends to drag it out (though not always, as evident from Pryor’s case). I really hope the WH recognizes the urgency and doesn’t let these Republican senators drag it out too long – given that no legislation is going to pass and the government is funded until October, I can’t imagine anything more important in the next 6 months than filling the circuit vacancies.
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All of Trump’s trials have been (significantly), why can’t Sen Mendendez get delayed until the Aug recess, or later?
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Menendez’s lawyers already tried to postpone the trial once, but the judge said no: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/judge-rejects-sen-bob-menendez-request-delay-criminal/story?id=105977949. The judge is unlikely to be any more willing to grant a last-minute delay.
More generally, this SCOTUS (and justice system in general) has bent over backwards to rule in Trump’s favor. I doubt Menendez, a Democrat, will get similar treatment – and for the good of rooting out corruption, I don’t think he should. I think he should just be expelled from the Senate just as Santos was expelled from the House, but I suspect the Republicans are blocking it to spite Dems.
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And of course Sen Menendez could resign, but I doubt he’ll do that.
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Yep, no chance Menendez goes willingly – anyone want to bet how many gold bars it would take to get Menendez to resign?
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@Hank
Haaaaaa… I don’t know the over/under on the going rate of how many gold bars it takes to get Menendez to do something honorable like resign. The only sample size we have up to date is for him to do something corrupt so I’m sure to do something honorable would be a higher price. Perhaps he can go into business with Trump & sell some Bibles together.
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The other thing we need to remember which I know others have mentioned before is if the Democrats lose the senate and Biden wins.There will be a push to confirm new cabinet secretaries before the GOP take over and possibly a few other positions as well like (FCC commissioner for example).
As others have mentioned the more they confirm now the better.
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That’s definitely a concern Rob. However, they have 5 full weeks after the election and hopefully not too many cabinet vacancies. HUD at least, should have a new secretary by then, too.
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Yep – this is partly why I think any nominees will need a September hearing to have a chance at confirmation.
And honestly, it’s more important to confirm judges with lifetime tenure than cabinet members whose terms end in four years – and as the whole Marty Walsh/Julie Su experience has shown, the WH can just have already-confirmed deputies serve as acting nominees if they can’t get a cabinet member confirmed, so there’s no reason to prioritize cabinet nominees over judges (especially not appellate judges).
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Cabinet nominees are a big deal for regulatory policy. There is a considerable difference between having Biden’s top picks and those who could be confirmed under a GOP Senate. Replacing Merrick Garland should be priority #1 in the Cabinet.
Yes Julie Su worked out because Su was already confirmed as a deputy and she wanted the top job, but there are plenty of deputy secretaries who may be ready to leave rather than take a promotion. Or the deputies might not be as good as you want. So that won’t work everywhere.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that (Dems hold the Senate), but that requires two of Tester, Brown, and Allred winning.
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Hopefully Sinema, Tester, Brown, and others will be open to confirming Julie Su as well in the lame duck period. That’s another nominee that won’t have to get a hearing, voted out of committee, etc.
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Su is not the biggest priority since she can remain acting indefinitely. Sinema is the biggest problem here in that she probably opposes Su. Tester wants to vote yes but doesn’t want to take the political hit. Brown is a labor guy through and through and I doubt he’s anything but a yes.
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I think there will be a few missed hearings at this point.
IMO, it’s pretty clear at this point no more Circuit Court judges are going to take senior status so sans a death, there will be no more vacancies there and unless the blue slip rule for district court seats goes away, we will soon run out of seats to fill there as well.
Only question is going to be what is going to happen with Mangi’s seat, the WH seems to be standing firm in not withdrawing him, so maybe they’ll roll the dice and try to do it after the election this Fall?
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The senate has 3 weeks in session before Menendez’s trial. They can get the 3 controversial district court nominees confirmed as well as Aframe. And hopefully a resolution on Mangi. If he can get thru the finish line, great. If his nomination is doomed, get a new 3rd circuit nominee by June.
The 2 SD district court nominees will probably get 75 AYE votes, they can wait. Bulsara and Coggins don’t seem to be controversial, thus all these nominees can be confirmed during the Menendez trial
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Slate’s What Next podcast released an episode today titled “Will Islamophobia Sink this Judicial Nomination”. It features Nate Raymond, Reuter’s federal judiciary reporter, discussing Mangi.
And the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a piece yesterday about Mangi, “Who Will stand up to the ‘crazies’ now?”
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/adeel-mangi-third-circuit-court-appeals-nominee-gop-opposition-islamophobia-20240326.html
It talks about when Chris Christie nominated a Muslim man to the NJ Superior Court in 2010 and a lot of the state GOP made Islamophobic claims about the nominee but Christie fought his own party over it. The article discusses Mangi and the fact that nobody in today’s GOP has the backbone to do that now.
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Also, not sure if anyone has posted this but Fetterman came out in favor of Mangi the other day
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/casey-fetterman-adeel-mangi-biden-judge-muslim-american-20240321.html
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Thanks for sharing, I don’t think it was posted before.
That’s something. I don’t know if it’s enough though.
Also, since some people have been treating this nomination as dead it’s not nothing that Fetterman felt the need to come out in support. He could have just kept quiet until forced to vote or until the nomination is officially withdrawn.
He’s obviously not listening to the folks on here who think senators won’t risk taking a position on a nomination that could be doomed. Wish Rosen and others had the same courage.
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This was not a surprise to me. Fetterman is a die hard liberal, who is pro-Israel. But he’s supported all Democrats, including strongly anti-Israel Summer Lee. He was never going to be a no on this.
I don’t think a single senator up in a 2024 competitive seat is going to announce one way or the other on this until the result has been decided. That means you won’t hear from Tester, Brown, Casey, Baldwin, or Rosen, even though several will vote yes if there is a pathway to confirmation.
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@Gavi 100% agree. Matt Stiegler also had a good Twitter thread about Mangi today: https://x.com/matthewstiegler/status/1773017937567244720?s=46
If we’re waiting on Rosen to have courage or integrity, we’ll be waiting until the end of time. The (belated) support for Mangi is encouraging, but progressives need to also go on the offensive against Cortez Masto/Rosen.
Chris Hayes and whoever can’t just stop at “Dems should confirm Mangi” – the message should be “Cortez Masto is blocking a qualified lawyer from delivering equal justice because of his religion, and that’s just one of the many ways that she has failed to deliver anything for Dem voters. Let’s go through the others…”
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@Jamie I wouldn’t say Fetterman’s a die-hard liberal, especially on social issues. He was one of the first Dems to insist on more punitive border measures without any immigration reform (like help for DACA recipients) that have popular support—even though his own wife was an undocumented immigrant (and he relied on her to get Latino support when he was running).
Fetterman seems more like Sherrod Brown—more populist-ish and anti-big corporations, but not as interested in social issues/things relating to race or people of color.
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@gavi
In the podcast, they ended by asking Nate Raymond if he thought Mangi would get confirmed. I believe he said something like, there’s still a chance, but it’s a slim path.
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If CCM is a solid no, the nomination is dead. If she’s covering for other senators up in 2024 who don’t want to take a position, then there may be a slim path. But I don’t think we should wait a lot longer on this. And hell no to waiting until the lame duck.
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Joe Lieberman is dead at 82. RIP.
I don’t think he was a particular problem on judges, but he was a real problem on other issues. And while No Labels wasn’t going anywhere this year anyway, this isn’t going to help things for them.
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RFK Jr. is basically doing No Labels’s job for them.
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No he is not. RFKs demographic is diametrically opposed to the kind of voters that would be attracted to No Labels. The latter are pro-establishment centrists, while the former are mostly anti-establishment and conspiracy theory wackos of both parties. No Labels hurts Biden a lot more than does RFK.
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Sen. Rosen announced today she is a no on Mangi
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Rosen is officially a no on Mangi
https://x.com/birenbomb/status/1773114893111066853?s=46&t=gZ_93T-VTehIIHg63SZ5WQ
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@Rob
It’s probably over. I don’t think that even Lisa Murkowski could save this nomination.
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Not terribly surprising to me. I felt from the beginning that she was the most likely no aside from Manchin and maybe Sinema.
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If there was any justice in the world, Mangi would be replaced by a hard left 30 year old Muslim. But taking the world for what it actually is, the NON-home state MINORITY leader from Kentucky may well get his recommended candidate nominated for NJ. Sad.
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Back to Menendez. Assuming he has no prior record, I wonder if he might be offered a sweetheart deal to plead guilty, ie; perhaps a year in a country club type prison 5 years probation, then resign from senate. So no trial. Does anyone see him taking a plea deal (especially if it’s a generous deal) then resigning.
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@Rick, I see him hanging on until the bitter end.
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That’s why it is not in his interest to resign voluntarily. Part of the plea deal would be his resignation, but prosecutors know he’s gone in a year, so it doesn’t give them much of an incentive to offer him great terms. If Menendez had won re-election in 2022, this would be more of a possibility.
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He does have a son who wants to have a career in the Democratic party….
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@Gavi,
McConnell would come up with an excuse to vote against Quraishi as well and IMO, threw his name out there knowing there would be likely opposition to him on a Circuit court level.
This is simply a tactic to keep the seat open and keep the Republican majority on there, nothing more.
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Quraishi would most likely be confirmed. The hard core Islamophobes and partisans would oppose him, but his ties to Muslim groups were far less than Mangi, and the fact that a few Muslim groups like CAIR raised concerns about him would help his cause. The problem with him is that he is too centrist and would move the court to the right (from where Greenaway was).
I’d just pick someone else.
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Again, let’s just throw another Muslim in there, is not a great look.
If they are going to move someone up from the District Court, make it Jamal Semper.
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Even if his ties to Muslim groups are less, I wouldn’t put it past McConnell to come out with some statement about how the New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association (which Quraishi is a part of) has some folks who are antisemitic b/c they’ve criticized Israel at some point, and Quraishi obviously shares those views. If the WH is smart, McConnell mentioning Quraishi should disqualify him—and Quraishi’s looming decision over the New Jersey party line suit is going to make him enemies among NJ Dems either way.
Given the limited time to vet someone, my guess is that they’ll go with one of the finalists on the old list rather than start the vetting process anew and have to go through the district judges’ recent decisions to see if there’s anything controversial.
I’ll give Rosen credit for no longer being a coward and coming out with it—I wonder if there was talk about deferring Mangi to after the election and she wants to cut that off. Now to see if progressives / liberals are just going to let her get away with her bigotry—the fact that Rosen supported Choudhury (who never got hit with antisemitic smears but could be much more closely linked to allegedly “anti-cop” statements) makes it clear what her real reason for blocking Mangi is.
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Quraishi would not be a good nominee, he’s centrist at best. He overruled a NJ law that allowed gun companies to be sued, that was later unanimously overturned by the 3rd Circuit (2-1 GOP panel)
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Semper or Castner seem like easy picks to me
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I tend to doubt it will be Semper since I recall from his SJC questionnaire that prior to his nomination to the district court, he was not admitted to practice before the Third Circuit.
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Jamal Semper would be a great replacement since we had one young Black man nominated by Biden to a circuit court that didn’t get confirmed so know we only have Andre Mathis in the past decade. Unfortunately I can see Semper‘a failure to register for Selective Services until he was 26 instead of at 18 when he was required to be a source of major fake outrage by Republicans should he be the nominee.
His SJCQ states “I inadvertently failed to register for Selective Services before turning 26. My lack of registration was unintentional as I was unaware of my obligation to register for Selective Services.” I can just see the he hates the military ads running in those red & purple states now. Of course they would be no less bull shit than the Mangi ads, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t work with some of these spineless senators sadly.
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The article that came out tonight about Susan Rosenberg, one of the people who had links to the Capital Bombing back in the 80’s being a member of the the Alliance Of Families For Justice likely prompted Rosen to come out from hiding behind CCM and say no, while saving Tester and Baldwin (who didn’t want to comment) from having to do so.
Like I said, Mangi’s nomination should have come much sooner and moved through much faster if they wanted him confirmed.
As was pointed out elsewhere, Nusrat Choudhury went through a lot of the same garbage Mangi did with attacks on her faith and statements from police groups saying she was anti-cop because of her ACLU work on justice issues and because she dared to talk about police killings and how so many of them were uncalled for.
It took a year and a half for her to be confirmed but she was in the end (with votes from CCM and Rosen) because there wasn’t a group she was aligned with that could be used as a smear to say she supported cop killers.
Here there was and even though it is BS, as the saying goes, if you have to explain you’re losing.
I remember that I and a couple of other posters here were attacked for saying it would be an issue and that we were overacting.
Would have loved to been wrong but I knew we weren’t going to be.
Electoral year politics suck sometimes, they really do.
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Choudhury would not have been confirmed after 10/7. That’s a certainty. Mangi would have been confirmed in the first half of 2023 even if this had come out.
You continue over and over again to dismiss the role of Islamophobia and in particular Mangi’s close ties to Muslim organizations that the right sees as terror cells in the opposition to this nomination. All the other stuff allows senators like Rosen to have a non-Islamophobic reason for opposition, but I strongly suspect that she was skeptical of this nomination early on.
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Preach, Jamie.
Zack’s posts about Mangi are so divorced from reality that I just roll my eyes and skip over them – it’s more like trolling than anything else at this point. As Gavi pointed out in another post, this guy has had it out for Mangi since the SJC hearing.
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I don’t recall Zack’s obsession with Mangi right after the SJC hearing and didn’t find it in some of the previous comments around that time. If you know where they are, let me know.
Want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but it’s pretty close to the end of the line with Zack for me. He keeps posting repetitive long comments from him in finding excuses for Mangi’s opposition (recall that before he went down the soft on crime path, Zack repeatedly harped on his not disclosing a meeting to the SJC). I have some suspicions why, but would like to have all the facts here.
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Looks like they’re gonna go with a “she hates guns” attack narrative for Maldonado
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/03/22/watch-gop-senator-shut-down-a-biden-judicial-nominee-on-gun-rights-n2636830
That was the Bloomekatz play too.
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This clickbait gotcha headline shit is so old.
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Haaaaa… Does Maldonado hate guns before or after her case load is backed up? I wish they would make up their mind. All this fake outrage is making me actually outraged.
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@Keystone and Dequan
Well they had to come up with something against Maldonado even though it’s still garbage that could at least make it a party line vote.
If nothing else, the my opponent voted for someone with a high case load isn’t exactly something that is going to get people riled up.
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The WH is still trying to get Mangi confirmed
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-defense-muslim-american-judicial-nominee-adeel-mangi-rcna145386
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Perhaps he will get a vote after all then. With at least three votes against I don’t see a path to confirmation but who knows.
If they’re going to schedule a vote for political theater then they might as well do it in April so that the NJ senators can still line up a replacement
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It’s possible they are saying that but also vetting Jose Almonte or someone like that behind the scenes.
As long as Mangi remains the nominee, it sucks up all the right wing oxygen. With all the focus on going after him, I think it will help to get Aframe, Kashubai, Ali, and Russell get over the finish line
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Interesting point keystone – I didn’t think about it that way, but it’s true that there are some benefits to not withdrawing Mangi right away. In that case, I hope they are actively vetting Almonte (or whoever) behind the scenes and not just banking on some miracle to get Mangi through despite Rosen’s bigotry.
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I agree Keystone. Mangi sinking probably makes those you mentioned much more likely.
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@Hank
Like I said, you and a couple of others live in a nice deep progressive bubble where some states are bluer then they actually are, no way could folks have other concerns besides immigration/DACA or think that some issues of criminal justice can actually sink a nominee in an election year fairly or unfairly (Marian Gaston for one) but I digress, at this point since you have nothing but insults left to give, going to move on.
If there’s a way to use the block button, feel free to use it, then you don’t have to be bothered by my posts.
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Fine, I’ll engage with your nonsense one last time since this post is directed at me.
Multiple people have repeatedly pointed out the factual flaws with many of your nonsensical assertions (like how keystone pointed out that the AFJ stuff might actually be nuanced in PA and not the clear political loser that you—repeatedly, without basis—assert it to be), yet you continue espousing them – you’re the one “living in a bubble” (again a phrase you dredge up again and again) where craven, spineless idiots like Rosen are apparently entitled to voters’ support despite being pathetic bigots who do nothing for the voters of color that elected them.
It’s like talking to an Islamophobic wall (which is why I suspect trolling) – there doesn’t seem to be a block function, so yes I will continue rolling my eyes and scrolling past your delusional posts on this topic.
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Another Pro-Mangi piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. This is their 3rd one over the span of ~ week.
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/adeel-mangi-first-muslim-federal-judge-islamophobia-20240327.html
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It certainly does seem like the White House is fighting hard, perhaps just to give the appearance of fighting an inevitable outcome. Unless Schumer can cleverly schedule a vote to take advantage of absences, I’m unsure how Mangi can get confirmed.
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@Aubrey
I agree. I think this is the case, give the appearance of putting up a good fight, knowing fully well that it’ll eventually fail. It would be horrible to not back up your own nominee. Since there’s little hope we’ll have a Susan Collins to Kavanaugh’s rescue moment or a Dianne Feinstein to Leslie Southwick’s rescue moment (still can’t believe this happened), I think the nomination will be withdrawn before long.
That said, I simply cannot get excited about the prospect of Quraishi. I know folks here will run to the safe corner of arguing that he’ll still be better than an outright FedSoc hack. But that still doesn’t do it for me. So unless Booker surprises us again with a decent replacement, this is a lose-lose for me.
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I am with you Gavi.
In fact, if I were Booker/Menendez/WH I would intentionally not nominate Quraishi (Nothing against him, this whole controversy isn’t his fault) just to prove a point. I hope they instead pick an even younger progressive and home that they can get them over the line.
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Something else to think about is that if the WH nominates one of the district judges, whether it be Quraishi or Semel or Castner or whomever, it’s going to create a backfill that will require blue slips. We’re all aware of everyone’s thoughts on blue slips so we don’t need to debate that bit again. Menendez was a pain in the butt with nominations even in the best of times I can only imagine what he’d be like when McConnell starts whispering in his ear, “just don’t give a blue slip and keep the seat open and Trump will totally pardon you.”
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@Aubrey,
I suspect at this point the WH knows his nomination is doomed but is trying to show people they fought the good fight before withdrawing his name and as you said before, there is no way Schumer is going to force a vote and put vulnerable Democratic senators on the spot, especially since I’m sure a couple of the senators who refused to comment on this (Tester and Baldwin) are no votes too.
Might make some folks feel better but it’s not smart politics.
@Gavi, throwing Quraishi’s name out was a troll on McConnell’s part, because if he was nominated he and Republicans would simply come up with other reasons to oppose him while also knowing a lot of the Democratic party base doesn’t like him.
It’s all about running out the clock to keep the seat open.
As I said before, it’s nice that the WH and others fought back but they should have been doing it the minute his hearing ended instead of letting the bad guys hit Tester/Casey and others with ads for nearly two months and assuming it would have no impact just because other nominees survived.
In an election year, that’s a bad assumption to make.
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“especially since I’m sure a couple of the senators who refused to comment on this (Tester and Baldwin) are no votes too.”
You’re sure? Did you get into the heads of these senators and get a confirmation that they were no votes.
You were also confident that Fetterman was a no, and you repeatedly claimed that Gibbons was going to renege on her retirement as well.
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Any chance President Biden personally calls Sens Cortez-Mastro and Rosen to try to convince them to switch their vote. Hell, give them 5-star treatment, invite them to the WH for lunch, could that make a difference?
And if Mangi is withdrawn, a good replacement would be Georgette Castner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgette_Castner
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I think that’s a near-zero chance, but only because you cannot fully rule out certain things in politics. Those senators knew what they were doing when they announced their position. locking themselves in. Republicans would be more likely to chance, because they are more likely to fall in line with leadership (i.e Thom Tillis, Graham). But not Dems.
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Yeah agreed – the sweet-talking should have happened before Cortez Masto announced her public opposition.
If Biden/Schumer had really cared about this nomination from the beginning, they would’ve twisted Rosen’s/Cortez Masto’s arms behind closed doors much earlier—perhaps make it clear that tanking a circuit nominee (especially on a closely divided court in an election year) is the type of maneuver that loses them funding for their reelection campaigns, plum positions on committees, or prompts support for a primary challenge. Pelosi got Dem reps in the house to commit to much harder votes (ex. Obamacare), so the power and mechanisms are there—Schumer is just too weak to use it.
I doubt that any district judge (other than maybe Quraishi to minimize the backlash) who didn’t make the finalist list last time is going to make it now, when there’s less time to spare (and knowing how slowly Dems move, a district court vacancy that might be left open for years). Ideally the WH would get Pierre-Louis to reconsider withdrawing her name (unlikely, but a person can dream), but otherwise vetting a new person and reaching an agreement with Booker/Menendez is going to take too long.
The other frustrating thing is that needing to replace Mangi gives Menendez more leverage at a time when he’s going to be a real headache for the Dems (especially if he gets convicted and doesn’t resign). I wonder how many gold bars Menendez is going to demand in exchange for his blue slip (although the WH could just ignore Menendez’s blue slip altogether like it’s ignoring Blackburn’s, I’m not optimistic about that).
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The House will send the articles of impeachment on Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10th.
I hope it’s thrown in the trash and the business of confirming judges begins again, especially Aframe and the others who we know will be party line votes.
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Always a nice punch in the gut to see senators I donated to give in to Islamophobia, reminding me of the early 2000s mentality I had to grow up in never went away, just hidden and waiting to be used against Muslims trying to rise in influence and power in this country.
Good luck to Jacky in her reelection bid, won’t be getting a penny or minute of textbanking from me.
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So this I cannot agree with. Rosen despite her flaws is still a good enough senator that she is worth having in the Senate. The last thing we need is to have fewer senators that would make it impossible to confirm nominees or pass legislation.
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Then you better double your donations and remotely volunteer to get out the vote for her to make up the difference cause I’m permanently done with her.
Senate democrats would be smart to confirm Kasubhai and Ali in the same week as Biden withdraws the Manji nomination so they have something to point to when they get pushback from Muslim supporters.
I agree with some others, trying to replace Mangi with another Muslim nominee like an interchangeable part and one less progressive could be offensive and counterproductive. His baggage with being involved with the US treatment of gitmo detainees could also backfire with the message it sends about what type of Muslims get rewarded.
I like Keystones recommendation of Jamel Semper, a young black man could be a lot more helpful for Biden in PA and MI than a moderate Muslim replacement.
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Yep @Mike agreed – I’m still debating whether to go a step farther and donate to her R opponent. On the one hand he’ll obviously be worse than her, but on the other hand I’m deeply uncomfortable with her bigotry and/or cowardice going unchallenged.
This article points out the effects of Rosen’s bigotry and cowardice on Muslim lawyers already: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/muslim-lawyers-recoil-at-gop-attacks-on-historic-appellate-pick. If these lawyers (and progressives more generally) want to make sure this doesn’t happen again, they really need to consider putting their money where their mouth is and fund some ads pointing out Cortez Masto/Rosen’s many failures.
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And what good does electing a GOP senator here do? Oh wait, nothing. I don’t disagree that what Rosen has done here is despicable, but she’s far better than would a GOP senator here. You’re not going to advance the cause of civil rights by backing a reactionary GOP senator no matter how angry you are. We may be able to change Rosen’s mind down the line, but that won’t happen with the GOP.
Not to mention that one more GOP senator makes it that much harder to confirm any judges in the next six years. The idea of donating to the GOP candidate is just idiotic and won’t send the message you think it will.
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There’s no good to electing a GOP senator, you’re right about that – but nor do I want to see Rosen get reelected because that would just reward her behavior. If anything, she’ll feel emboldened to oppose even more Muslim nominees (and who knows who else) – I doubt she’ll become more persuadable if she thinks her Islamophobia helped her win reelection.
If all these folks talking about Mangi now were serious, they’d at least do everything in their power to make sure Rosen doesn’t pull this BS again – and given Rosen’s track record of delivering more for the far-right Netanyahu government than key parts of the Dem coalition like Hispanics, enough people threatening to not donate to her/donate to her opponent (obviously I, a single person, wouldn’t do much) might be the only way to get her to listen to Dem voters for once.
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Supporting a candidate that will never vote for a liberal judge because the other candidate didn’t support two judges seems counterintuitive. Especially considering Rosen is the third most vulnerable incumbent Democrat.
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Fair enough – it is counterintuitive. But supporting or rewarding a bigot also seems counterintuitive if the goal is to stop bigotry and discrimination, so that’s what I’m struggling to reconcile.
Rosen’s vulnerability is no excuse – it didn’t stop her from backing Ana de Alba despite de Alba reducing the level of supervision on an undocumented immigrant who was involved in the killing of a police officer. And if Rosen’s vulnerable because the people who voted for her last time are discouraged by her failure to do much to help them, then that’s Rosen’s problem.
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Some of you guys. Please understand Rosen is a democrat , one more against a pending GOP majority where they select idiotic , Federalist novice far right judges way far worse then he. We need her to win her state and she understands her state’s dynamics better then most of us.. Yes I’m disappointed she won’t back Mangi but again she could be on a guerney and I would wheel her into the chamber and hold her thumb up for more important overall Democrat agenda, other judges and legislation…
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Interesting news out of Kentucky, where the legislature is considering a bill to strip the governor of his power to appoint somebody to a vacant Senate seat and just have a special election instead. That would have a chance of backfiring on Republicans, since if anything happened to McConnell, that seat would be open for several months and Republicans would be short a Senate seat during that period. Also not sure why the legislature would want to remove the governor’s ability to appoint somebody to a vacant Senate seat, since Republicans in the legislature have already passed a law requiring a same party appointment to a vacant Senate seat.
For the impeachment news, how long could they shunt that off? I’d hate for the Senate to vote on anything impeachment-related on Thursday the 11th, since that’d be the best window to invoke cloture on Aframe and then confirm him on Monday. Unless it’s one vote they would squeeze into the morning and not drag into the afternoon or consume the day. The Senate skips town for a week after the 18th so that Thursday would be the perfect day to just dedicate to impeachment votes, since Aframe looks to be the only appeals court judge with a possibility of being confirmed for a while.
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That is interesting in Kentucky, I’ve always thought if McConnell left early the same thing for the Gov to do is appoint the weakest Republican option possible so that he’d be primaried before the main election or be weak in the general.
Guess thats what the state legislature thinks might happen too.
With the impeachment I’ve read that Chuck doesn’t want this to be a thing his vulnerable senator to vote on until after the election so he can throw it into some committee and it gets voted down in Nov or Dec.
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It’s not the weakest Republican. The governor wouldn’t have had his pick of ANY Republican in the state. The law passed in 2021 would give the governor the power to only pick from a list of a few candidates presented to him by the state party. You can be sure that all shortlisters would be right wingers.
This law replaces that structure, as the current Dem governor made it clear he doesn’t think the 2021 law was constitutional and would not follow it. When the legislature overrides Beshear’s expected veto, they hope the new law won’t have any constitutional issues, because “no one can argue with letting the people vote.” This is how Wisconsin currently fills a senate vacancy.
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Good article on James Ho (Who I fully expect to be the next SCOTUS nominee should Trump & senate Republicans win this November) & his wife.
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/judge-james-ho-wife-mifepristone-abortion-pill)
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It’s a stiff competition, but my money is with Patrick Bumatay.
With Ho (who’s older) the Republicans would kill just one bird (being foreign-born is not unique on SCOTUS).
With Bumatay, they would kill 2 birds with one stone, gay and Asian.
This all depends on timing, so this wild speculation may come to nothing, but I think Ho would be a more tough confirmation because I could see Collins and Murkowski not supporting him, due to this abortion rulings. Not sure if Bumatay has any abortion rulings.
But yeah, we can only hope that Ho further ages out of Republican SCOTUS consideration, though he’s lobbying hard for the job.
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@Jamie,considering they didn’t give a direct answer when asked about Mangi’s nomination, I’m going to go with them being no votes that don’t want to say they are no votes.
As for Gibbons, all I pointed out is that a liberal nominee wasn’t likely to fly with her and given that we’ve seen other judges take back their senior status, it was a reasonable concern some of us had that she could change her mind which is why we want to Ritz confirmed ASAP.
Also Schumer wants to keep control of the senate so this idea he’s going to issue a threat of primary challengers over a Circuit or lower court nominee is a pipe dream.
Finally, the reality is this.
In some races, you’re going to have centrist/blue dogs like Rosen or a Republican.
If you don’t like that and don’t want to vote, fine.
Just don’t complain about any bad things Republicans do after that.
You get what you voted for or didn’t, how politics works.
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“considering they didn’t give a direct answer when asked about Mangi’s nomination, I’m going to go with them being no votes that don’t want to say they are no votes.”
So you’re making an assumption on people solely based on their silence? Because they refused to give a firm answer (which is exactly what a potentially vulnerable senator up for election should do), you are “sure” that they would vote no?
This kind of arrogant conclusion is exactly why you rub a lot of people here the wrong way. And why we suspect that you were opposed to Mangi regardless of how you may try to hide it.
While the second half of your comment is true, you are not exactly the best messenger for it.
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James Ho isn’t too far out of the age range for a Republican SCOTUS justice so he is still in the driver’s seat, with Amul Thapar not far behind.
I would also say even though she’s only a district court judge, given all the interference Aileen Cannon has done for Trump in his one case, that will likely elevate her status as Trump will want to repay her for that and SCOTUS would be just what she wants.
Hopefully it won’t come to that.
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Yes, Cannon has done a lot for Trump… but she’s also been called out many times by Republicans as being a bit incompetent.
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@Keystone,
The former matters more then the latter, the fact Cannon is a joke at her job won’t matter if Trump likes her and wants her to be on SCOTUS.
Let’s just hope we don’t have to find out with any of the names we’ve heard.
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Harriet Miers would like a word with you
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*Myers
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If Miers were as conservative as Alito, a MAGA Republican Senate would not hesitate to confirm her despite her lack of qualifications. The Senate Republicans of 2005 had a lot more integrity than the Senate Republicans of 2025.
Even Mitch McConnell has not always been like he is now. In 1995, McConnell urged Republican Sen. Bob Packwood to resign amid sexual harassment allegations DESPITE KNOWING THAT THE SEAT WAS EXPECTED TO FLIP (Packwood was succeeded by Democrat Ron Wyden in a special election). Today’s version of McConnell would rather do an Ironman Triathlon with his skin bleached green than let Democrats flip a Senate seat because of a scandal.
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A friend in Philadelphia just texted me to ask what the deal is with the 3rd Circuit nominee.
For context, this person, lives in Philadelphia, is a lawyer, is a lawyer whose circuit is the 3rd, and is someone who pays attention to politics.
Just a reminder for us all that there are lots of people out there who don’t follow the ins and outs of the judiciary as closely as the people on this blog do.
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Actually, I look at this anecdote a little differently. The fact that a judicial nomination is breaking into news is a good thing, especially for someone who wants other Americans to take the 3rd branch of government seriously. If this is reaching your friend, who’s into politics, maybe it’ll reach others who aren’t. This doesn’t necessarily change anything for Mangi, but for judicial nominees in general.
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Which 2nd Circuit Judge do we think has to go to management training?
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/accused-of-an-overly-harsh-management-style-federal-judge-agrees-to-counseling
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This is completely a guess as I have no insider knowledge, but I would go with Steven Menashi. Livingston is the chief judge & has been on the 2nd circuit for almost two decades, yet I haven’t heard a hint of this kind of behavior from her. I doubt it’s any of the Democrat appointees as all but Lohier are fairly new & I just don’t think it’s him.
That leaves the Trump appointees. Both Sullivan & Bianco were district court judges, so I think it’s less likely to be one of them. Nardini got some of his education overseas in Europe so I would bet he is fairly cordial. Park knows with him being a young, conservative AAPI judge on the influential 2nd circuit, he could be prime casting for a future SCOTUS vacancy under a Republican so I doubt he would want to put up any more roadblocks to turn off swing senators (Unlike James Ho). so that just leaves the Federalist Society hack that was never a judge previously Steven Menashi as my best guess.
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@Keystone, it could be a district court level judge, the article didn’t say and in that case, I could think of several names off the top of my head.
We’ll never know though.
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That the clerk complained about the judge accepting a newspaper clipping and a jar of jam makes me think the clerk was just throwing everything against the wall.
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