Recommended both by Sen. Marco Rubio and Florida House Democrats, Coral Gables attorney Detra Shaw-Wilder has now been nominated to fill the last vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Background
Detra Shaw-Wilder received a B.S. from the University of Florida in 1990 and a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law in 1994. After graduation, Shaw-Wilder joined Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, where she became Managing Partner in 2015 and General Counsel since 2017.
History of the Seat
Shaw-Wilder has been nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to replace Judge Robert Scola, who took senior status on October 31, 2023. Shaw-Wilder was the only candidate that was simultaneously recommended for the federal bench in 2021 by Senator Marco Rubio and Florida House Democrats, but was not nominated in the 3 judge batch put forward in late 2023.
Legal Career
Shaw-Wilder has spent her entire legal career at the Coral Gables firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton where she currently serves as General Counsel. While at the firm, Shaw-Wilder has represented limousine drivers in a suit for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. See Vidinliev v. Carey Intern. Inc. 581 F. Supp. 2d 1281 (N.D. Ga. 2008). Shaw-Wilder also represented three law firms in obtaining a large judgment against two attorneys for impropriety in settling various lawsuits. See Kane v. Stewart Tilghman Fox & Bianchi, 197 So. 3d 137 (Fla. App. 4th Dist. 2016).
Shaw-Wilder has also handled a number of federal appeals, including persuading the Eleventh Circuit to reverse a default judgment against Costa Rican corporation Parrot Bay Village, for lack of jurisdiction over the defendant. See Oldfield v. Pueblo de Bahia Lora, S.A., 558 F.3d 1210 (11th Cir. 2009).
Political Activity
Shaw-Wilder has a number of political donations to her name, all to Florida Democrats, including former federal judicial nominee Mary Barzee Flores during her run for Congress.
Overall Assessment
The last three nominations put forward to the Southern District with the support of Florida senators have sailed to confirmation. As of now, there is little reason to believe that Shaw-Wilder’s experience will be any different.
I agree, Brindisi’s political history would be used to hurt him, both in his races for Congress and NY State Supreme Court judge.
Why Joseph Saba might have issues as well given that he ran for judge as well.
Have to wait and see.
As for other nominees for seats, as some of us have said before, while it would break barriers for Jessica C. Brown to be the next judge from Vermont, there is no way in heck she’ll be getting the nomination with her essay on early prison releases.
That’s an issue no swing state Democrat wants to be anywhere near right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like nominees are priority this work period
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/news/press-releases/majority-leader-schumer-dear-colleague-on-senates-busy-agenda
LikeLiked by 2 people
On March 11, the committee will vote on 6 nominees. None of them seem to inspire strong opposition.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I expect easy confirmations (they should be voice votes) for some of the Republican nominees and Robert White of the EDMI.
Seth Aframe of the 1st Circuit along with Amir Ali, Sarah Russell, Mustafa T. Kasubhai are all going to be party line votes IMO with Manchin also voting no.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I mostly agree. Robert White will get a comfortable confirmation. I expect party-line narrow victories with Seth Aframe and Amir Ali.
I also think that the Kasubhai, Russell, and Suzanne Kanter nominations will fail.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Schumer in that letter is stressing attendance for the impeachment trial, so maybe he’ll tee up the party-line nominees for Wednesday votes tomorrow? It also sucks they are doing a trial with this. Not sure how long an impeachment trial for a cabinet official will last, I hope it doesn’t drag into next week and eat up next week’s floor time. Hope for a trial to go into Friday or something?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Kasubhai and Russell will be confirmed by the skin of their teeth.
Rebecca Kanter’s nomination is in trouble though and I don’t think she’ll even make it to a hearing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why is Rebecca Kanter’s nomination in trouble, what exactly did she do… I bet whatever it is, it’s trivial BS. The GOP probably found a college paper of hers where she said Rush Limbaugh was a big fat idiot, etc
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unfortunately @Rick, I think it’s something else. She hasn’t gotten an ABA rating yet and other nominees after her have. There’s gotta be some confirmable lawyers in San Diego who want lifetime employment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with Mitch here, and will go one further in predicting that the Aframe nomination will also fail.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think Amir Ali, Seth Aframe, or Sarah Russel are any more controversial than Eumi Lee was, so I think these 3 get confirmed. Of course St Joe of the Blessed Shroud of all that is holy Manchin will vote NO on all 3
LikeLiked by 4 people
I laughed so hard at the way you referred to Joe Manchin.
Anyway, I think that Ali and Aframe are confirmable (unsure about Kasubhai and Russell). Kasubhai was questioned about some past statements he has made about America being Islamophobic. Kasubhai stood by those comments and talked about how he has personally been affected by Islamophobia. Trying to tie the Muslim nominees together, Ali was asked whether he agreed about America being Islamophobic. Ali said that he did not.
As I have mentioned previously, the main line of attack on Aframe is that his recommended, reasonably harsh 30 year sentence for a child rapist was too lenient. Dems should be able to realize that the sentence is reasonably harsh (even if they’re unwilling to say it out loud), and I think Manchin would vote to confirm Aframe if he didn’t have his bogus rule of opposing nominees who can’t get GOP support.
As for Russell, I think that her call for a moratorium on incarcerations during the pandemic might sink her nomination.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think there’s a good chance we may only get 4-5 nominees confirmed this week. Monday/Tuesday should see the 3 already set up and then on Wednesday we should hopefully get 1 or 2 party line nominees confirmed.
The rest of Wednesday would then be given over to the impeachment trail/swearing in off senators and that would continue into Thursday. As remember the senate can complete no other business when they are dealing with a trail.
Also the prime minister of Japan is addressing congress Thursday morning so I would assume they will deal with the trail Thursday afternoon leaving no time for nominations. Here’s hoping Wednesday they confirm 2 party line nominees and set up a few for next week.
LikeLiked by 2 people
If that’s what happens, the best case scenario for voting on Wednesday would be to maybe confirm Ali and then invoke cloture on Aframe as the last Wednesday vote. That way he could be lined up to get confirmed after the trial.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I expect Amir Ali to be confirmed by a narrow margin, perhaps with Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Ryan
30 years in a maximum security prison is no cakewalk… He’ll likely die in prison….If he did get out, he’d probably spend his days at a halfway house or someplace with assisted living.
Besides, the opposition to his nomination hasn’t been anywhere as vocal as it’s been for Mangi. Aframe and Berner haven’t faced anything like Mangi has gone thru
LikeLiked by 2 people
It doesn’t need to be vocal for the nomination to fail though, just look at Edelman, who faced many of the same criticisms.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There were definitely online attacks against Edelman and Gaston. the attacks sounded pretty bad and there wasn’t really much of an easy defense against them, at least not one that you could put in a sound byte or in a tweet.
The few times I’ve seen attacks against Aframe, it’s that he gave a soft sentence in that one trial. Whenever someone points out that the sentence was 30 years in prison, it tends to shut the argument down asap. It’s A LOT easier to slap down the Aframe attacks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Edelman and Gaston weren’t resubmitted, likely because it was known the votes weren’t there.
I don’t think the others would have had renominated if the votes weren’t there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Edelman had already been resubmitted once already though before his nomination ultimately failed, so that in itself isn’t enough to rule out the renominees from the last congress also not having the votes needed to be confirmed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
While I’m assuming you mean last session, there are no remaining judicial renominees from the last congress. Those were Edelman, Bjelkengren, and Colom.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Edelman was originally nominated under Biden in 2022 and renominated in 2023 before not being confirmed. That was my point to Zach.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The questions for the record for Nancy Maldanado are now up. 132 pages !! Translation – this is a seat vacated by a Republican appointed judge so the GOP senators are having a panic attack knowing that Biden is making the replacement pick
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2024-03-20_-qfr_responses-_maldonado.pdf
LikeLiked by 2 people
I went to whitehouse.gov & the cover picture is Biden embracing Bernie. I hope Bernie is going to stomp for Biden hard this year. Progressives & the youth vote are going to need a daily dose of a lot of the things Biden has done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Progressives/young voters are going to have to learn they can’t get everything they want right away and sometimes they may have to vote for someone they’re not happy about voting for and showing up for every election.
Republicans got Roe V Wade by understanding that back in the 1970’s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Been excitedly waiting 2 weeks for new judicial votes in the senate. I really hope they don’t waste Weds and the rest of the week on the impeachment vote and send that off to a committee so they can confirm 6 district judges this week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This has the chance to be a big judiciary week, if we can get cloture motions for any party-line votes teed up tonight. There’s also a possibility of a new batch Wednesday (had some weird dream the other night where the Vice President on a Tuesday said to “be on the lookout for new nominees tomorrow”), and then four more nominees will be voted out of the SJC Thursday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
14 Senators didn’t vote today on the Bazis cloture (8D and 6R).
Brown, Cassidy, Cramer, Ernst, Fetterman, Hassan, King, Lujan, Murphy, Murray, Romney, Rubio, Vance and Welch
How much of that could have been eclipse-related? I know Hassan, Welch, Vance, Brown, Fetterman and King all represent states that were in the totality path, with Cassidy being right on the edge.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I doubt that has anything to do with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A lot of it is just late travel after a long recess too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bummer. No additional cloture motions filed, and no mention of the Allen cloture/confirmation, either. They’ll probably do that one on Wednesday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Schumer wrapped up. No cloture motions sent out so they must be receiving the impeachment message early on Wednesday. Bazis will be confirmed tomorrow. Not sure about White, there was no set cloture expiration time for White and that the recess time would count towards postcloture. Nothing mentioned on Allen, so Allen will probably be confirmed Wednesday or avoid cloture alltogether.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And immediately disappointed looking at the schedule for tomorrow and presumably the rest of the week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not that I necessarily think there’s any logic to it, but I am curious why Bazis would generate twice as much GOP opposition as the recent TX appointees or Lund. I believe Biden’s only verifiable GOP nominee with less GOP support has been John Frank Murphy, and most of the GOP conference distrusted/disliked Toomey by that point.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Perhaps it has to do with her work as a public defender, which usually evokes concern among conservative legal groups that she won’t be tough enough on crime. Besides that, I have nothing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is a “further votes expected” notice from one of the Senate Twitter feeds, so I’d think White would get confirmed. Again, weird there was no postcloture expiration agreement for White, since typically on Tuesdays there’s a vote at 2:15PM when the Senate returns from its weekly lunch/meeting recess for the parties. All that was agreed on was that the recess time count towards running out the postcloture clock. Since Bazis will be voted on at 11:30AM and these votes can take around an hour, the White cloture would would be around 12:30PM and end at around 1:30PM, where they’d then go on recess. That’d be around 45 minutes of the 2 hours of postcloture time and if the clock were to just let run, it’d expire at around 3:30PM.
It sounds like the Senate is still expected to dismiss the impeachment charges, I guess they still have to just go through the whole formal process of swearing everyone in as jurors and whatnot. Best case is a dismissal Thursday morning and maybe the day ends with an Aframe cloture vote, which can still be filed on at the end of Tuesday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maldonado was added to the list on Thurs (which means she should clear committee next Thurs)
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/04/11/2024/executive-business-meeting
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cormac Carney, CD CA, showing up now as a future vacancy. Retiring 5/31/24.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Believe that was announced a few weeks ago but nice to get official confirmation of that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good riddance to Carney, who is a racist jerk who has no business being on the bench anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amen, goodbye & good riddance… This morning McConnell spoke about the Mangi nomination on the senate floor again. Looks like they are keeping up the offense against him.
LikeLike
They know at this point it will be much harder to put someone in that seat and thus allow them to flip it and give Republicans control of the 3rd Circuit again.
Control that is only possible because too many of the Democratic appointed judges on there decided to take senior/status or retire under Trump or when Democrats couldn’t replace them.
Drives me nuts.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Fetterman was the only non-voter on Bazis but was an early voter on White, so we’ve got perfect attendance in the Senate. An Aframe cloture vote on Thursday could very well depend on if the VP is around.
LikeLiked by 3 people
364 democrat nominated district judges now in the federal court system, more than there have been in generations, and almost none of Bidens judges are the one for one deals I remember Obama used to make with McConnell.
Though, again at this point, I’d be fine with that just to keep FedSoc hacks out off the benches for another decade or two.
LikeLiked by 2 people
With only 20 vacancies currently without a nominee that doesn’t require a Republican blue slip, that’s only enough for four more batches. I really hope Biden can squeeze another 10 or so red & purple state district court nominees so we find at least have six more batches this year.
Florida, North Carolina & Maine will be key to go along with the circuit court vacancies because that’s a potential of 7 more nominees just from those three states alone. Hopefully a deal can be made with Texas & Louisiana to round out the ten needed.
LikeLike
With how close the election will be, there’s no excuse for Dem senators not have a nominee for every blue state vacancy, 6 month is still plenty of time to confirm all district court nominees. The red/purple states will be a nice cherry on top.
I was just looking at N.D. of Ohio and it’s a shame they couldn’t work out a deal for a 4th nominee with Portman but maybe he said no because that would’ve made it a 5R/6D setup and that was too much for his conservative heart.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The 4th vacancy didn’t occur until October 2023.
LikeLiked by 1 person
White gets 58 cloture votes. His confirmation and Allen cloture scheduled for 3:20pm start.
LikeLiked by 2 people
There are three nominees being voted on this week and none of them have pictures on their wikipedia pages.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Mitch
Unfortunately myself & others left Wikipedia when they allowed the Let’s Run idiot stop posting the nominees profile until after they were confirmed. I use to post all of the pics but from the sound of it nobody else has picked up the slack since I left. Sucks but I wasn’t gonna keep investing my time only for somebody to use the rules of Wikipedia to take down my & others hard work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Durbin on the senate floor right now in defense of Mangi. He’s comparing the way he’s been treated to the way Thurgood Marshall was treated when he was nominated to the SCOTUS. They are not giving up on him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Democrats must have their hearts set on Mangi. I still think he won’t be confirmed, but I’m surprised the nomination hasn’t been pulled already.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This nomination is too important to just pull. With Biden’s deteriorating numbers amongst Muslim Americans, he can’t just pull Mangi like others. He as well as senate Democrats need to fight for Mangi tooth & nail even if it ultimately leads in his nomination failing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do wonder if this is all prep for a post-election confirmation, where the Nevadans say ‘the voters have spoken and they want leaders like Mr. Mangi’ or if they’re just using him as a shield to get Kasubhai and Ali confirmed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is the Mangi nomination actually that important to Muslim Americans? Because, I haven’t seen a ton of Muslim Americans speaking out about it. Also, I haven’t really seen much mention of it in the Detroit and Dearborn newspapers. The nomination failing would be heartbreaking and would be a travesty, but I don’t think its success or failure will really have as much impact with Muslim American voters as people on this blog posit.
I’m definitely in the camp of keep the nom live as cover for not just Kasubhai and Ali but also Russell and Aframe. The more the right wingers yell and fuss about Mangi, the less people are pointing fingers at the other party line candidates.
Vet a replacement in the background.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Your last sentence is the absolute most important of all. I didn’t mention it today because I’ve mentioned it so many times previously but I’m all for keeping the Mangi nomination alive as long as they are getting his replacement in the background. If they are going to wait until the Summer recess to pull the nomination that’s fine as long as his replacement is ready to be announced by the next batch. That person can have their hearing when they return in September & be set up for confirmation either before the election recess or right after.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve been wondering about Missouri? The two points of view are that the Senators are working in bad faith, but the sheer number of vacancies may force them to compromise.
My own opinion is that they will not agree to fill all five vacancies, but they might agree to a small package of nominees, perhaps two. A possibility would be a mini-package consisting of Magistrate Judges Shirley Padmore Mensah and Joseph Dueker.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the verge of turning St. Louis into a conservatives-only court, I doubt it. Hawley and Schmitt are noobs, and Hawley joined the senate as 5/7 of WD WA were being held open. It becomes a much bigger question if Biden wins another term.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mayorkas travesty is delayed till next Monday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The impeachment should have started in Friday & give Republicans until Monday at 5pm to complete it.
LikeLike
So what exactly will the Senate be doing tomorrow? At a minimum Allen will be confirmed (his cloture vote will be today). Can’t they eat up time and do a Manglona vote tomorrow or something lol?
LikeLiked by 1 person
We really need some cloture motions sent today. If the impeachment nonsense has been pushed to Monday, something needs to be sent today to set up Thursday’s votes. We are getting down to only party line votes left so with everybody in full attendance today, no better time than today to start sending those cloture motions.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Is there a reason they can’t just always have a big list of nominees with cloture pre-filed, so they don’t have to be so tight with the timing and can be flexible with scheduling as need/opportunity arises? I assume there must be some procedural rule I don’t know. If a cloture motion must ripen, I take it that means they can go rotten if they sit too long?
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Ben
I often wonder the same thing too. But as you said there must be some senate procedural reason as to why they just can’t send cloture motions to the desk for a large (If not all) number of nominees at once. The cloture motion must expire at some point.
I remember at least two cloture motions being withdrawn & both of those nominees have since bene confirmed so there must be an expiration date. But I wish Shumer would still send one more motion to the desk than will be confirmed. He can always withdraw one but it’s good to have an extra one (Preferably a non-controversial one) sent just in case there is attendance issues.
LikeLike
The ED MI is now set to be at full strength for the first time since February 2021. Might not last long though, as they could have up to seven normal vacancies in the next few years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Heck, we could even see Goldsmith announce now that the queue is cleared.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m definitely hoping for some cloture motions tonight (maybe 1 district plus Aframe). We should also get a new batch tomorrow and I’m hopeful that includes 4 or 5 nominees.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And hopefully tomorrow they don’t make us wait until around 5pm for the new batch.
LikeLike
Final vote on White is 58-42. I believe the last judge confirmed with a fully-attended Senate was AliKahn? Not only that, she needed the VP for confirmation.
The best things that could come out of this week is if we get nominations tomorrow and a cloture on Aframe Thursday. I want to hear “I move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar #460” from Schumer at wrap-up tonight.
Also, what time is the Japan PM expected to address Congress? There is an SJC meeting so I wonder if there would be a time conflict with that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s interesting that there hasn’t been a circuit judge confirmed by a full senate since June 2020. Guess it speaks to how hard it is to coordinate a hundred schedules that Biden’s only full-senate judicial confirmations have been KBJ for SCOTUS and six random district appointees.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Also, many circuit judges have been confirmed on Monday afternoons, when senators are travelling back to town.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I just want to hear the clerk at the senate say
“Nomination the judiciary” because the only names that could come from the clerk have the last name Aframe, Ali, Russell, or Kasubhai.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Meriweather could also be called.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is just no hearing scheduled for the three nominees for the Tax Court by the Finance Committee, nominated at Februay 1, so I doubt that the court could be brought to a full completement until the end of this year – in the case we all won’t hope it will happen, Judges Holmes and Morrison could be re-nominated for another term. Just remembered, because the urgency was stressed at the announcement, because there are already six vacancies, who belong to the oldest in general, though no blue slip is required – I know, term-limit and if they start later, they stay longer, but it they stay unfilled, they stay unfilled…
And there is no hearing scheduled for the three nominees for the DC Superior Court by the Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs nominated at November 27 2023. Two have no nominee, as well as the two at the DC CoA, they won’t be full at the end of the year, too, I suppose.
Another court who won’t be complete is the Central District of California in my opinion, because now there are four vacancies, while the remaining eight judges who are eligible for senior status are still there, just three years older than at the beginning of Biden’s term. With the high workload there could soon be a serious shortage of judges similar to the one three years ago with six open seats.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No need to run like a chicken with its head cut off. The finance committee generally takes at least half a year to hold hearings for tax court nominees. The court likely won’t reach a full complement, but it hasn’t reached that mark in decades. The current WH Counsel at least cared enough to get nominees out, unlike the previous two.
The DC CoA was an issue of the DC JNC not putting out satisfactory names, and refusing to go back to the drawing board for the old vacancy. At the beginning of February, they put out a new batch of three names, of which two should be satisfactory.
While the pressure (and potential shortfall) is there for the CA senators, the difference between 3 and 4 nominees for CD CA isn’t a big one, and they’ve known about the ‘new’ vacancy for months. Their commissions surely handed plenty of names over to the counsel’s office.
LikeLike
Anne Marie Allen had a cloture vote of 97-2.
Irks me that we have to waste time on a nominee who will be confirmed easily but then again, that’s why Republicans wouldn’t go for a voice vote, they want to drag the clock out.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Was just thinking the same thing @Zack.
No clotures today and besides Allens confirmation they’re filled up tomorrow with junk bills I’ve never heard of, what a absolute waste of a week.
The Republicans just tricked senate dems into wasting most of this week and next.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Once McIff Allen is confirmed, 38 states will have at least 1 Biden judge. The 12 exceptions are: Wisconsin, Maine, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, & West Virginia.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Had Judge King not rescinded, Biden would have had a West Virginia judge. We have two recommendaitons for Wisconsin sine last year so I assume at this point Johnson is being Johnson & holding the seat open until after the election.
Maine should be taken off the list this year with a vacancy on the 1st, hopefully the district court seat too. Same with North Carolina & hopefully one, two or all three-district court vacancies. South Dakota will have two Biden judges before the Summer recess.
We have four women recommended for Alaska but Sullivan wants his own separate commission. Don’t get me started on Scott Colom in Mississippi. We had a vacancy in Kentucky, but I would rather the judge stay in her seat than Biden nominate Chad Meridith so I’m actually happy about that state being on the list. North Dakota had the circuit court & both district court seats filled by Trump so there won’t be any vacancy there anytime soon, although technically the circuit court judge could retire today if he wanted to with his age & district court time on the bench.
That just leaves Alabama, Arkansas & Missouri. As I’ve said before I would give a judge to the left of Clarence Thomas being put in any of those states’ seats before the election without a circuit court vacancy or elimination of blue slips as close to zero percent as you can get.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Schumer really f-ed up. He should have done the 3 controversial District Court nominees along with Aframe this week.
When senator Menendez is on trial, then you do those red state nominees who’ll get 70 + aye votes.
Is it even possible to get Ali, Russell, Kasubhai, and Aframe confirmed before June with Menendez likely to be out most of May..
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Rick Was VP Harris available tho? If all the Republican senators were gonna be “no” votes for these controversial nominees…which means that the ever sanctimonious Joe Manchin was gonna be a “no” vote as well…and VP Harris wasn’t available, then they would all have been failed nominees. That wouldn’t have been smart of Schumer to schedule those votes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For the next round of noms I’m thinking:
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hoping for something out of California tomorrow. I’m expecting nominees for both Maine seats to be announced simultaneously, quite possibly tomorrow. Also wouldn’t be surprised with a WD NY nominee, or the pointlessly early naming of a Maldonado replacement.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Definitely hoping for nominees for C.D. Cal. I’m guessing Biden wants to name all 4 at once. I still worry that Carney might rescind, but I’m not too worried given that he’s outright retiring and seems like he REALLY wants to retire. As an OC resident, I really would like to see another Biden judge stationed in OC (although state court composition in your home county are also important — calls to jury duty are almost always at state courts, not federal courts).
Idk what’s going on with S.D. Cal — I’d assume it’s just a coincidence that Gaston and Kanter both happened to be S.D. Cal nominees. Not too worried about N.D. Cal. since Davila conditioned on confirmation of a successor.
Agree about PA and ME. As for Maryland, I feel like Cardin might be different this time around considering he’s retiring and will have NO say over nominees in 2025 no matter which party controls the White House/Senate.
LikeLiked by 2 people
SJC’s business meeting this week was moved to 9:45AM, so it’ll start 15 minutes earlier. Would have to think it’ll be pretty brief and they’ll just zip through the nominations (maybe they’ll allow voice votes on the South Dakota nominees to get through the meeting faster?). Was wondering if the meeting would be held or not with the Japan PM speech.
Also, the biggest issue after next week would be Menendez, his trial is on May 6 (a Monday), correct? Obviously the risk of doing Aframe’s cloture next Thursday is that you’d have Menendez for the cloture but not for the confirmation the following week and then you’d chance the confirmation to attendance.
The Senate would have nothing to vote on Thursday as of now, I’m sure they’ll meet up in the morning, committees will meet, and then they’ll be done for the day when they head to the House. If that’s the case there’s a chance cloture motions are sent out for tomorrow. I think the best way to confirm Aframe tomorrow is to vote on cloture Monday before receiving the impeachment files, and then let Tuesday be dedicated to the impeachment files. In exchange for letting Senators head out early on Tuesday, you could vote to confirm Aframe on Wednesday morning.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Now that I’ve connected more dots, one negative consequence of a Sotomayor retirement this year is that GOP senators could withdraw blue slips like Dems did in protest of Amy Coney Barrett’s speed confirmation. I still think 1 SCOTUS seat is worth far more than however many red state district court seats this would affect, but I don’t think there’s any imminent danger if Sotomayor stays on the court (unless she is hiding something from us, which seems unlikely given she’s transparent about her diabetes while Scalia, who also had diabetes, hid it from the public until after he died).
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is one big difference between the Democrat senators that withdrew blue slips in 2020 to what could happen if Sotomayor announced retirement this year. There were no circuit court vacancies in any of those blue states in 2020. Right now between Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee & Maine, we have 8 district court vacancies. So if the WHC wanted to play hardball, they could just nominate a younger more liberal nominee for the circuit court vacancies if Republicans withdrew blue slips. So this would be a win/win if Sotomayor announced & the WHC played their cards right.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Haven’t seen any news about nominees. Really hope we aren’t waiting until after 5:00 again.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Gonzalez received his commission yesterday.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I haven’t been on here much, since these days the blog is mostly like a transcript of C-SPAN and/or the general comment section of DailyKos, (miss the golden age of this blog when we actually discussed the judiciary) so I probably missed the news about David Hurd going senior again.
I wonder if this means he’s in poor health—he’s 86 after all. I also wonder if Gillibrand will retain her turn to recommend a candidate for this vacancy. I doubt it’d be Jorge Rodriguez and I doubt it’ll be an inspiring pick. I’m staunchly against judges picking their replacement or thinking that they should have a big say in the process, especially to the point where they’d rescind if they dislike the nominee. And since this is a blue slip seat, I’m less worried about it falling to a FedSoc nominee.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Breyer will join Souter in sitting by designation on CA1. Can anyone remember the last time a single circuit court played host to more than 1 retired justices?
It’s ironic that this is happening on the smallest circuit. Wouldn’t it be funny if Souter and Breyer were to sit on the same panel. Or form a 2-1 majority? Or come out on the opposite sides of a case?
Since Congress established this process for retired SCOTUS justices in the late 1930s, I imagine that CA1 and CA2 would have multiple retired justices back in the day, since a larger proportion of justices came from those states.
I don’t know if this is widely known, but besides establishing the process for assigning retired justices to sit on lower courts, the statute also makes it possible for the Chief Justice to use retired justices as circuit justices, which would free up some of the doubling-up among active justices. Though, I don’t know if this has ever been done since 28 US Code 294.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/stephen-breyer-plans-visiting-judge-status-appeals-court-rcna146667
LikeLiked by 3 people
Shame they aren’t going to sit on the 5th. Could embarrass some of the judges into behaving.
LikeLiked by 3 people
100-0 vote to confirm Ann Marie McIff Allen and votes on two junk bills, what a complete waste of a full senate day today is.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Complete waste. All Democrats present & were spending a full day confirming red state district court nominee instead of all three party line nominees or Aframe. What a joke
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would hope there’s full attendance next week given the trial will probably happen on Tuesday, if the impeachment articles are being delivered on Monday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree Dequan. A waste. At the very least we could have seen 1-2 of the other district nominees confirmed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Allen confirmed 100-0. First unanimous non-voice vote on a Biden judicial nominee, the last 100-0 judicial confirmation vote since Nye (Trump nominee to Idaho, who I believe was originally nominated by Obama and not confirmed under the Republican Senate).
If we do get 11th hour nominations today, maybe it’s like last time where we’d get a red state appeals court nominee? I think we’re down to that being an 11th, 4th and the other 6th circuit seat in that regard.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That means that this is likely the first time Sullivan voted in favor of a Biden judicial nominee.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Interesting that Lee (or Romney?) cared enough to ask Sullivan and Tim Scott to switch their votes. The also did the same mid-vote yesterday, getting Marshall to switch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For all those saying that today’s 100-0 vote on Allen was a waste of full Dem Senator attendance for the sake of voting on party line judicial nominees…and given Sanctimonious Joe Manchin’s pledge to vote against all nominees that don’t get at least one Republican vote, please tell me how a 50/50 vote without the benefit of Vice President’s Harris’s presence help any of us supporting these nominees. Doesn’t a 50/50 vote mean a failed nomination? Maybe I’m not understanding something. So please explain.
LikeLike
Harris is in DC, partaking in the Kishida ceremonies, so I’m not sure what your point is.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@star0garnet, …and if VP Harris prioritized today for any of the other things she’s doing today, what is Schumer supposed to do about it? Order her to come to the Hill instead? Is he her boss? The least that I would do is wait until the end of next week to see if these party line nominees are still unconfirmed. May well be that that a day has already been designated for the purpose of confirming them. I figure Leader Schumer can count and schedule votes at least as well as you or any of us. That’s my point!
LikeLiked by 1 person
She has no higher responsibility than tie-breaking votes. Her political future is closely tied to not pissing Biden off, and if she does manage to get a promotion, it’s pretty likely Schumer will still be in charge of the caucus.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Schumer is letting the GOP embarrass themselves now…He will slip in a hard judicial vote when least expected.. That’s how he has gotten almost 200 judges confirmed.in this extreme ideological and almost evenly split senate. I expect maybe 2 confirmations next week hoping it’s Aframe and a Muslim.one…. Then for him to hit the gas in May…
LikeLiked by 2 people
As others have said, it irks me that cloture votes were wasted on someone who would have easily been confirmed with a voice vote instead of the tougher nominees.
Why after this the Republican nominees need to be pushed to the back.
If Republicans want to leave their own nominees hanging, so be it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t understand why the confirmation of a nominee of a court with two Republican senators should be less worthy than one in a state with two Democratic senators. I also don’t see this week as a wasted one, because three district court judges have been confirmed.
In the moment there are just two circuit and three district court nominees remaining, who are all critical, and without VP can’t be confirmed, so if she’s not available, I see nothing what Schumer can or should do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Allen’s confirmation means that Biden got his 149th district court judge confirmed exactly 5 months before his predecessor did.
There are 20 more district nominees at present, so although CCA judges are the priority, he should be able to get past #45 for district courts providing there are more nominees soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So it sounds like we wouldn’t have been able to confirm any party-line nominees today anyway since the VP is also with the Japan PM? Can’t imagine her saying “Sorry, got a text from Chuck, gotta step out to the Capitol for a vote, brb”. Even with that they could’ve voted on Manglona, Meriweather, or some of the DC Court nominees, while not being as exciting.
Still have the White House Briefing Room site up. If we do get a red state appeals court nominee, it’d probably be the other 6th Circuit seat, no? I’m sure the White House has no confidence in Hagerty and Blackburn while a deal could be worked out for the 4th Circuit/North Carolina District Court seats and the 11th Circuit/MDFL seats.
LikeLiked by 2 people
She had the greeting at 10am and the state dinner at 8pm, with the only thing scheduled in the middle being a press conference with Garland at 1pm. She may have had a non-public agenda, but it was probably an ideal day for tie-breaking duties.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@star0garnet, the fact that VP Harris didn’t come by for tiebreaking votes today may be disappointing for those of us (like me) who sip champaign with the confirmation of each thoroughly liberal judge. However if these party line judges are confirmed before Menendez’s trial starts, there is really no problem as far as I am concerned. If they aren’t, I will concede that you were absolutely right!
LikeLiked by 1 person