Judge Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

A judge in California’s specialized State Bar Court, Valenzuela has been tapped for a seat on the Central District of California.

Background

Born in 1969, Valenzuela received her B.A. from the University of Arizona in 1991 and a J.D. from the University of California Los Angeles Law School in 1995. Valenzuela then spent three years as Special Assistant to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an additional three as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

In 2000, Valenzuela became an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. In 2006, she left to become head of national litigation with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In 2011, Valenzuela became a Criminal Justice Act Supervising Attorney with the Central District of California.

In 2016, the California Supreme Court appointed Valenzuela to become a judge on the California State Bar Court, where she currently serves.

History of the Seat

Valenzuela has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, to replace Judge Philip Gutierrez, who will take senior status on October 15, 2024.

Legal Experience

Valenzuela started her legal career working for the United States Commission on Civil Rights, where she worked as an advisor to the Vice-Chairman. She then spent two years as a civil rights attorney with the Department of Justice.

In 2000, Valenzuela became a federal prosecutor in the Central District of California. Among her notable cases as a federal prosecutor, Valenzuela prosecuted a health care fraud case ending in an 18 month sentence. See United States v. Usanga, CR-04-273-LGB (C.D. Cal.) (Baird, J.). She also prosecuted a bank robbery case that resulted in a jury trial and conviction. See United States v. Ayers, CR 01-286-R (C.D. Cal.) (Real, J.).

From 2006 to 2011, Valenzuela worked at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), where she served as the National Vice President of Litigation. Notably, Valenzuela represented students challenging the Tucson Unified School District’s school assignment plan as racially discriminatory against black and Mexican students. See Fisher v. United States, 549 F. Supp. 2d 1132 (D. Ariz. 2006) (Bury, J.).

From 2011 to 2016, Valenzuela managed the Central District of California’s indigent defense panel under the Criminal Justice Act, setting standards and monitoring counsel appointed for indigent defendants.

Jurisprudence

Since 2016, Valenzuela has served as a judge on the California State Bar Court, which allows her to preside over attorney disciplinary matters. In this role, Valenzuela presided over more than 100 bench trials involving attorney disciplinary proceedings.

Notably, Valenzuela ruled that attorney Benjamin Povone’s reference to a judge as “succubistic” did not warrant discipline as it was protected by the First Amendment. See Lawyer Draws One-Month Suspension for Potshots, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Feb. 16, 2022, http://www.metnews.com/articles/2022/SUCCUBUSTIC_021622.htm. However, Valenzuela nonetheless recommended a one-month suspension based on filings that accused a judge of bias and partiality. See id.

Political Activity

Valenzuela has a handful of political contributions to her name, including donations to Presidents Obama and Biden, and to Governor Gavin Newsom.

Overall Assessment

Coming from a court primarily focused on issues of ethics rather than of regular litigation Valenzuela would bring a different background to the bench. Nonetheless, Valenzuela’s two decades of experience with criminal and civil litigation should give her the base needed to manage a docket as a trial judge.

92 Comments

    • I am very pleased with the three CDCA nominees. The NDCA nominee from last week’s batch was underwhelming so I’m hoping we get the rest off the California vacancies filled in short order with nominees that are closer to the CDCA.

      Biden needs to officially pull Katner so I believe we are down to 2 SDCA & 1 CDCA seat that needs nominees. We are down to 11 vacancies overall that don’t require a Republican blue slip so we probably have 3 more batches left this year.

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      • There is technically room on the calendar for four more batches the rest of the year (for a hearing in July, two in September, and one in mid November). But I have a hunch that the plan is to fit everyone in with the next three and that last one could be for any last minute vacancies/renominations.

        Liked by 1 person

    • My understanding is that most of these internal matters could be brought up with and dealt with by the Chief Judge of the court. However, if a formal complaint was made it would go to the chief judge of the circuit court. This was the case in the 9th circuit where Judge Murguia has put out responses to complaints.

      I know in the case of Judge Newman they have the relevant committee handle it, which is made up of I believe senior district and circuit judges. This is due to a claim of unfit for office.

      The only way I can see her even developing a temporary niche is often cases related to one another can get assigned the same judge, so perhaps if she is assigned cases dealing with ethics she will get a number of them. This is the case with gun control challenges regularly getting handed to the conservative district judge Benitez, though even then a number of challenges were heard by other judges.

      Liked by 1 person

      • We usually don’t have insider information as to who applied. But regardless that has nothing to do with who we ourselves say we would like to see in the seats. My case in point is on the last write up (or maybe the one before by now, I can’t keep up… Lol).

        I listed the nominees I would like to see for each remaining vacancy that doesn’t require a Republican vacancy. I mentioned in full disclosure that I personally reached out to my number one nominee for one of those seats & they actually replied back to me. They said they were grateful I would consider them for encouragement to apply but at this time, it isn’t the right time for them personally to apply for a federal judgeship. That still doesn’t change the fact that they are my personal number one choice for that seat.

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      • There you have it. The job doesn’t pay well for the level of education that is required. There’s a city in Nor Cal that pays its entry level officers more than District judges.

        I’ve noticed that younger judges like Casey Pitts are single , so that makes it easier. It doesn’t hurt that he came from private practice either.

        It’s very expensive to live in California , hence population shift to states like Texas and Montana.

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    • Per senate rules, after cloture is invoked on a circuit court nominee, they have to wait 30 hours before the confirmation vote. The 30 hours can be reduced with unanimous consent, but I don’t all 49 Republicans will agree to that. Since the senate almost never works on Fridays’s & they are off for the next two weeks, she will likely be confirmed when they return from recess.

      Liked by 1 person

    • This is a common tactic for appeals court nominees. The cloture vote is usually on a Thursday with confirmation the following Monday (in this case though there will be a few weeks in between due to recess).

      Sometimes Schumer gets unanimous consent to shorten the debate time to 18 or 24 hours so that votes can be held on consecutive weekdays, but we haven’t seen much of that with this congress (Nancy Abudu was an exception I believe).

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Nominees posted for tomorrow’s hearing, it’s the four nominees that were expected. Would imagine Campbell draws the most fire due to the blue slips.

    In addition to the Maldonado vote tomorrow, there should be some cloture motions going out for when the Senate gets back from its two week break. There’s still Meriweather and three other local DC judges on the calendar, if not, they could take another crack at Kasubhai.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. I just read 6 GOP Senators released a list of Biden judicial nominee targets to delay or hamstring… 13 district court nominees. 3 court of appeals nominees and 6 US attorney nominees because of Thump… Can someone expound on this a little please…..?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Well I remember when Blackurn put the same hold on all New York judicial nominees. Schumer proceeded to tee up 3 of the 4 pending NY nominees. It was sooo good. I say when they put a hold on somebody, Democrats should expedite them just to take away any incentive od the holds in the future.

      @Gavi

      Has Blackburn released her hold on New York nominees yet? Haaaaa

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      • Well if that’s true I would actually take that. The senate is on a two-week vacation after tomorrow so they return July 8th. Hopefully the jury finds him guilty before then & we can rid ourselves of him for good by the week the senate returns.

        If it takes a little longer, the senate is off the following week so as long as everything is taken care of by the time they return for July 23rd. That gives Schumer two weeks to clear the deck with most of the judicial nominees before the August recess.

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  9. I’m kinda shocked that Neumann and Lipez are on that list since they have a Republican senator who has signed off on them. It’s kind of a d*ck move towards Susan Collins IMO. It’s weird how the GOP keeps trying to antagonize her since she plays such an important role in terms of the Dem’s ability to confirm nominees.

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    • Interesting that Campbell applied/interviewed for the CA6 vacancy back in the fall of 2023 (when there was only the Gibbons vacancy) – perhaps there was some possibility of moving that seat to Nashville. Her SJQ also indicates that the TN senators’ staff interviewed her twice, so any claims by Blackburn that she wasn’t consulted are complete nonsense.

      I’ve also noticed that neither Lipez nor Neumann mentioned meeting with Collins in their SJQs – I assume both have gotten blue slips from Collins? Nothing suggests otherwise, and I’m just surprised that Collins hasn’t been more involved with the judicial selection process.

      Lastly, the nominations page says that Welch is presiding over the SJC hearing – is Durbin still out?

      Liked by 1 person

      • That’s great news all around about Cambell. So Biden was willing to at least consider moving the duty station for Gibbon’s seat. I have said repeatedly on this blog duty station should NOT be used as a barrier to get the best candidate. Particularly if you are shoving the nominee down the Republican senators’ throats anyway.

        Also I had no doubt either the staffs or Blackburn and/or Haggerty had met with Campbell. The same thing happened with Mathis & Ritz. Then Blackburn proceeded to lie & say she wasn’t consulted. The only sad thing about the Campbell nomination is with three Tennessee seats on the 6th, this will be the last time i get to watch a SJC hearing & see Blackburn bitch & moan about getting another liberal nominee rammed into her home state circuit, unless one of the three are elevated to the SCOTUS.

        I am surprised Collins wasn’t more involved in the process for Maine. To be honest, there are probably the best two Maine federal judges we have ever gotten so I’m certainly happy she appears to have signed off on both.

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      • The Mary Kay Lanthier nomination moved at lightning speed. The news article stating Steven L. Barth, Jessica C. Brown and Michael P. Drescher were the three Vermont attorney’s being vetted broke out in March. Lanthier ‘s SJCQ states she met with Senator Welch on April 5th & interviewed with Senator Sanders on April 9th. She met with attorneys from the White House Counsel’s Office on April 10th. She was announced by Biden on May 23rd.

        That is good news on a couple of fronts. First, when the WH doesn’t agree with the recommendations from the senators, they can quickly identify another potential nominee within weeks. Two, once they interview the nominee themselves, the vetting from the FBI seems to be going super quick now. In this case, it was less than 43 days. That should only get quicker as there are less & less nominees, the closer we get to the election. This is important in case we get any unexpected vacancy in a blue state or for a circuit court seat. And Lanthier isn’t a sitting judge. A sitting judge vetting should be even quicker than 43 days at this point.

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  12. Not surprisingly, Blackburn went off about she and Haggerty were totally left out of the selection process.

    In her opening remarks, Karla Campbell mentions that her mother passed away during the interview process and thanks Senators Blackburn and Haggerty saying that their staffs were so kind to her during that moment and went t so far as to send her thoughtful condolence notes.

    Weird that the staff would send condolences if they weren’t in contact.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Whoa….Cruz is having a full on melt down.

    Also, it’s very evident that Cruz and Lee are both on Twitter way too much. Given what we’ve seen of Cruz’s twitter mishaps, you’d think he’d not want to highlight that fact so much.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. OMG – Kennedy snuggly asks Lipez, “Do you remember Michah Smith?” Lipez asked, “Do you mean “Michael Smith?” Kennedy snaps back, “You don’t remember Michah Smith bc I bet his victims remember him”. Lipez then tries to correct, him saying “I had a case involving a Michael Smith”. Kennedy keeps going on yelling at her bc she can’t even remember his name and how disrespectful that is. I just looked up the case and it is indeed “Michael Smith”.

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  18. Here’s my recap from panel one of the SJC hearing today;

    Senator Welch started off opening the hearing. He called Julia Lipez “Justice” Lipez which I thought was reserved for Supreme Court judges only but maybe Maine has different rules. He passed it over to Senator Graham who talked about a bill regarding young girls being depressed. 

    Senator Casey then introduced Henry. He gave a nice tribute to Ed Smith, whose seat she would take. Senator King introduced Lipez who started off agreeing with Senator Graham’s earlier comments. Senator Sanders then introduced Lanthier. Senator Welch followed & did the same. Since he was chairman, he then introduced Karla Campbell, despite Senator Blackburn being present. 

    Senator Blackburn then spoke on the Campbell nomination. She BLASTED the nomination saying she & Haggerty was shut out of the process. She said she knows she doesn’t have a blue slip & doesn’t demand veto power but she wants the constitutional right of advice & consent. She then went into blasting Kevin Ritz nomination. She accused the White House of a backroom deal & said this is now the fourth turn this White House didn’t consult her & Haggerty. Senator Welch then went through the WH timeline of consultation. He said the WH not only interviewed the recommendations from Blackburn & Haggerty but even offered to nominate one of them. He then said the senators rejected that offer so they nominated Campbell. 

    Senator Kennedy then asked Senator Welch if instead of 5 minutes for each court of appeals nominee, can they have 7 or 8 minutes to question them since there’s two nominees. Senator Welch agreed to 6 minutes.

    Karla Campbell then made her introduction comments. She thanked her home state senators, said she appreciated how kind their staffs treated her during their interviews & said she even thanked them for their letters of condolences they gave her after her mom passed away (This obviously contradicted Blackburn’s comments a few minutes earlier). Lipez then gave her remarks. 

    Kennedy then asked for a second round which senator Welch said “Not now, let’s see how it goes”. Welch then asked Campbell to talk about her experience in the Peace Corps. He continued asking questions to both nominees. 

    Senator Graham then started off complaining about only getting 5 minutes to ask two nominees questions. He then said if he has to get all Republicans on the committee together to stay here all day he will because he will not be rushed. He then asked Campbell about an organizations manifesto that called for not cooperating with ICE. He then asked her if she represented the Alphabet Googles Union & if she was familiar with their stance on Israel being an apartheid state & other matters. He asked her about her $1500 donation to Oddesa Kelley who tweeted that Graham, Blackburn & Hawley were aligned with the Devil & also said Graham & Cruz were two of the most immoral people on Earth. Campbell said she didn’t have Twitter so she’s not aware of the comments. 

    Graham then asked Lipez about a case she sentenced a defendant involving physical abuse to children. He then asked about a case where a mother killed her 14 month year old who was exposed to fentanyl. 

    Senator Grassley then asked Campbell about an organization that called for the disbandment of the police. Campbell said she’s never represented that organization so Grassley apologized & didn’t ask a second question. 

    Senator Lee asked Campbell about Oddesa Kelley again. He went over with her comments from Kelley’s tweets about Republican members of the SJC from the KBJ Supreme Court confirming hearings. He then went over another tweet where she referenced senator Tim Scott white. Lee then asked her about her affiliation with Workers Dignity. Campbell said she never represented them, she was only on an advisory board when they first started, ending in 2012. He then asked her about her endorsement for attorney Raquel Lee Bellamy. 

    Senator Whitehouse then started off about asking the nominees about juries. 

    Senator Cruz started off talking about Lipez giving light sentencing to criminals. He said the Democrats put her on this panel because Karla Campbell’s record is even worse than hers. He accused Campbell of giving senator Grassley a misleading answer. He accused her of representing the Workers Dignity organization that is a Marxist & communist organization. Campbell then answered more than a decade ago she was on an advisory board & hasn’t been affiliated with them for about a decade. Cruz called Campbell the most radical nominee Biden has sent to the senate yet. Senator Whitehouse then tried to cut off Senator Cruz because his time was up. Cruz then stated Welch agreed to give them six minutes. Senator Booker then asked how much time has been used. Senator Welch then got into a heated back & forth. Senator Booker then interjected. This led to Senator Blumenthal claiming his time & asking questions. 

    Senator Kennedy asked Campbell why she lied to Senator Grassley when she said she never represented the Workers Dignity organization. He then showed Campbell a picture from one of their meetings with her in it. Then then asked Lipez if she has more sympathy for the criminal than the victim. He then asked her about a case involving Mica Smith, who molested a 4 year old girl. Kennedy then went into great detail about the charges including Smith rubbed his finger in a circular motion on the vagina of the two young children. He then asked her about an article in the Bangor Daily News about her giving light sentences. Kennedy then turned to Campbell saying he’s seen a lot of activist nominated for federal judges & he’s not saying she’s the only one on the list but it wouldn’t take long to call the roll. 

    Senator Durbin showed up & apologized for missing the hearing up to that point. He then gave Lipez a change to finish her answer she was giving to Kennedy. He then gave Campbell a chance to respond to earlier charges against her. 

    Senator Blackburn then went. She thanked Lipez for her work on human trafficking but then said she was disappointed in her light sentencing. She then introduced herself to Campbell because they have never met. She asked her if she was ever a judge & Campbell said no which caused Blackburn to say she has no experience. She then accused this to be a backroom deal that was agreed to before the vacancy was even announced. She then asked her about the Workers Dignity organization. She then asked her about Odessa Kelley. She then asked about if she gave advice to the Tennessee Refugee Rights Coalition. 

    Senator Hawley accused Campbell giving four different answers to her responses about the Workers Dignity organization. He then accused her of not including her work with them to the committee. 

    Welch then told Hawley his time was up. Some of the Republican senators asked for a second round which Welch denied. 

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  19. Where does Blackburn get 4 from? She claimed that Karla Campbell is the fourth nomination Biden has made over the TN senators’ objection.

    Now let’s see if Schumer will make another strategic blunder by allowing this nomination to languish in the senate after the SJC votes it out to the floor, like he did with Adeel Mangi. Schumer needs to quickly round up the votes for Campbell and schedule her floor vote as soon as possible. The behavior of the Republicans in the SJC this morning will only get worse the longer this nomination isn’t acted on. I wonder, will the NV senators fall for this?

    A side rant: Why are Dems so darn weak and accommodating?! I cannot believe that no Dem challenged the Republicans when they claimed that having a panel of 2 circuit nominees is so unusual that they need more time to question them. And Welch gave them. Put aside what you think of the amount of time senators have for questioning. Let’s focus on the actual practice under Republican majority. Has Grassley or Graham ever been so accommodating to Dems when they were the chair of SJC? Dems have always had this fundamentally flawed belief that if their nicer to Republicans, Republicans would behave. How often must this be proven wrong? The request for a second round of questioning is so ridiculous that even Welsh had to say no.

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    • @Gavi

      Amen. And not just Campbell, Schumer telly needs to tee up ALL circuit court nominees the following week the senate is in session after they are voted to the floor. I was looking at some of the timelines for Trump’s circuit court nominees. I’m amazed at how many were voted out of committee & had their commissions signed the same month.

      To answer your question about Blackburn, she did say four judicial nominees, she said four nominees. So I believe the fourth person she was talking about was the US Attorney that Hirono tanked.

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      • But that would make even less sense. Biden wouldn’t nominate a US Attorney over their objection, especially with the blue slip.

        More importantly, the TN DID support the nominee, so that’s not over their objection. It was Hirono’s objection that prevented the nomination from going forward, not the TN senators.

        Liked by 1 person

    • I agree. Giving 6 minutes given that it was a smaller batch than normal was more than fair. They just wanted to pick a fight.

      As far as confirmations go I agree. They should take that two weeks prior to the August recess and just knock out Ritz, Kidd, Lipez, and Campbell.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. My thoughts on the hearing: Campbell didn’t come off very well, particularly when asked by Cruz about why she donated $1,500 to a candidate with very dubious views, and her connection to a group with even more dubious views as a member of an advisory committee after giving a misleading answer to Grassley (similar to Mangi in association but handling it much, much worse, especially since she didn’t disclose it). She looked visibly shaken and forgot to turn on her microphone at multiple points during the hearing. During the questioning/badgering from Cruz, Booker actually interrupted asking how much time was left, which I can never remember hearing before and I almost wondering if it was a stalling technique. Blackburn accused her of knowing she would be nominated before the vacancy was even announced. Hawley called her a liar, which while I hate to agree with him, he isn’t far off. Lipez didn’t get many questions only because Campbell got the bulk of the questioning, but handled the ones she got fairly well. I’d expect she’ll be confirmed before Campbell, if Campbell even gets a vote. If I were Biden, I’d be looking for a replacement TN nominee right now. She’ll be all over the right leaning websites in no time.

    The second panel was much less eventful. Henry didn’t know several of the Kennedy law review questions but gave reasonable responses.

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  22. There @Frank goes again, hoping anyone to the left of Roberts gets voted down – looking “shaken” when a bunch of nutjob senators are screaming at you is not disqualifying, nor is her answer that she did not represent the group in question as a lawyer. Representing a group in a legal case and serving on the advisory board are two different things.

    Also, all of the attacks on Campbell were because of her affiliation with…workers’ rights groups? They couldn’t attack her as soft on crime, so they’re now saying that workers having rights is communism? I don’t trust Jacky Rosen further than I could throw her, but if there’s one group the NV senators try to not piss off, it’s the organized labor.

    It’s probably too late to pick another candidate and start over anyways, so the Dems will just have to push Campbell through. She’s less controversial than Berner (given that Berner also worked at Planned Parenthood), so this will be a party-line vote – but we all knew that was going to be the case anyways.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Ha, you miss the mark again. I’ve been positive regarding the vast majority of Biden’s judicial picks, and am not sure where you get that I am some big conservative/FedSoc hack. I want judicial nominees from a diverse amount of experiences, which Biden has mostly been doing. When did I say that I hoped Campbell wouldn’t be confirmed? I merely pointed out that she handled her hearing extremely poorly, which is indisputable. Why did she give four different responses to four different senators? All she had to do was give the same answer, which shouldn’t be too difficult if there isn’t anything to hide. As Hawley noted, her answers couldn’t all be right (and I understand that Hawley isn’t really questioning in good faith). I agree that Campbell should be able to get the NV senators, but I’d be a bit worried about Sinema’s vote, since she is much closer to corporations than workers.

      @Gavi: Maybe I misunderstood, but Booker never said that the time had expired, he was asking how much time was left. If the time had expired, why didn’t he just ask that?

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  23. @Frank

    What nonsense.

    Political candidates making statements on social media that you disagree with, doesn’t taint a citizen making legal donations to that candidate. Let’s not pretend as if the candidate’s statement has anything to do with Campbell. It’s just a pretense. These senators probably all donate to Trump, who’s probably said worse things. Ditto for past/future Trump judicial nominees. Is it now necessary to know and agree with every political statement made by a political candidate? Or only in this case because you don’t like the nominee?

    Hawley’s claims of lies are equally nonsensical. Campbell was being asked to give definitive dates and time period about her membership on a board from over a decade ago. Her answers were her best estimates, not having the exact dates in front of her. No one but Hawley and Frank could think otherwise.

    “During the questioning/badgering from Cruz, Booker actually interrupted asking how much time was left, which I can never remember hearing before and I almost wondering if it was a stalling technique.”

    Are you serious? This was Booker noting to the chair that Cruz’s time expired and that they should get on with the hearing and not to allow Cruz to monopolize it.

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  24. I agree that Campbell had a rough hearing. However, when I revisit the hearing in my head, I kind of feel like the attacks against Lipez were more coherent. They didn’t give her that much attention but all of the attacks were focused on the idea of being light on crime/sentencing. (For the record, I still think she’ll be confirmed relatively easily since Collins is theoretically supporting her).

    They came after Campbell hard, but everyone kind of went at it from a different angle and with a different level of craziness. I still don’t actually understand if the GOP was asking about 1 group or several and what any of them actually do. It didn’t help that one Senator would ask about a legit issue and it would be followed up by Blackburn yelling about not being consulted enough or Cruz and Lee refusing to believe that anyone isn’t on Twitter and clutching their pearls bc someone said something mean about them online.

    The GOP questioning of Campbell reminded me of the movie version of “Cats”. Every scene was crazier and more bizarre than the last, every actor was basically in their own movie, nobody’s energies matched, and at the end of it you’re not sure what you just watched but you know it wasn’t good.

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  25. Why are you guys arguing like frank is wrong? for once i agree with frank, biden is at heart a coward who is at his core afraid to fight and challenge bad faith republican charlatans like ted cruz and john kennedy, he will withdraw campell nomination because manchin wont support her either. Yet these bastards voted to confirm outright goons like lawrence van dyke a disgraceful man.

    We know the script already we saw it with gaston, edelman , they were scared of gop backlash and withdrew the nomination.

    At this point any bad faith republican can block any biden nominee. What still gets me is the hypocrisy and fake outrage about circuit court slips when these bad faith hacks republican senator didnt care when trump was shoving right wing federalist society hack after hack in the senate down democratic senators throats despite their objections its all a farce.

    It just grinds me to my core that we have democratic senators and the president bringing a knife to a gun fight. Treat these republicans as bad faith scumbags and nothing else. An unrealistic scenario i agree.

    Liked by 1 person

    • @Gavi

      Your first problem is you put the words “Blackburn” & “Makes sense” in the same sentence. Those words should never be uttered without a period, apostrophe or dot dot dot between them… Lol

      But to the jist of her argument (Regardless of how bad faith it is) is the administration has not given her what she wanted for four nominees. So far in the state of Tennessee there have been six federal nominations by Biden. We know about Mathis, Ritz & Campbell to the 6th already so that three of the four she is talking about. Two more are the two US Attorneys that Blackburn voted for so she can’t be talking about them. So the sixth is the US Attorney that Hirono opposed & Biden pulled. Blackburn has been on record numerous times saying she is upset Biden didn’t nominate that guy & she even called Hirono out in a SJC hearing over it so that has to be the fourth nominee she is talking about.

      @aangren

      You are saying Biden is going to pull Campbell’s nomination? Just like you said he would never nominate anybody to the 7th (Kolar) or 10th (Frederico)? I mean look, I’m as upset as anybody is that Biden nominated Ramirez (And Childs & Pan while we are at it). But we have 49 court of appeals nominees to look at for his record. At some point if you claim you want young progressive court of appeals judges like I want, you have to admit Biden has been the best president at it despite his short comings on some. Who has been better? Obama? Clinton? You can make the argument Carter was better but he had no SCOTUS appointments. Let’s be honest in our assessments.

      @Frank

      Campbell had a rough hearing but she was being attacked by bad faith actors. I thought her response in her opening statement about meeting with Blackburn & Haggerty’s staff & thanking them for their letters was quite brilliant actually.

      Lastly, good to see a few more cloture’s filed. I wish Schumer would stop with the non judges for a while but hopefully once Menendez is back they will shift solely to judges.

      Liked by 1 person

  27. As we approach the Maldonado cloture vote, attendance was ridiculously light today, only 71 Senators voted on that ambassador this morning (the attendance was hinted at by reporters earlier in the week and also speculated by yours truly).

    So there shouldn’t be any drama in the vote, only questions are does Maldonado get a Manchin/Collins/Murkowski combination and what cloture motions are sent out afterwards.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I missed the beginning of the vote since it started earlier than scheduled, but I overheard her name on the list of Senators voting no.

      The cloture motions were also filed before the vote, as keystone mentioned. I know we’re essentially scraping the executive calendar at this point while the Menendez trial goes on, but beyond judges the only other nominees I’d be voting on are ones who would remain in their position after the end of Biden’s term, like that nuclear board nominee (the term for that seat expires in 2027).

      Liked by 1 person

  29. Yes, unfortunately until some more nominees get voted out of committee it’s going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. One reason I was bummed that Kasubhai didn’t get confirmed this week, that would’ve been a nice win.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. We’ve had a lot of nominees recently with public defender backgrounds. I know we also had a bunch of these earlier in the administration. Does anyone know/remember how Collins/Murkowski have responded to noms w that sort of background? Have they voted for them?

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Maldonado received 43 votes for cloture, with 8 D/I senators absent. Also absent was Murkowski, if she’s a no, so will Manchin, so she’s 50-50. May be tough to schedule, unless Schumer wants to gamble that Dems will outnumber Reps on first day back in July.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Almost a total waste of a week, not sure how Maldonado will get confirmed if Murkowski is a No other than to get lucky with someone being out.

    Welp, like always, as soon as the senate dems have good momentum on judicial confirmations they completely fall apart again.

    See you in two weeks.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Cantwell wrapped up. Senate returns on the 8th to confirm Maldonado. Should hopefully get more cloture motions that Monday to set up some votes on Wednesday. With any luck the Menendez trial will be done, and could get another crack at Kasubhai or Ali/Sooknanan (I mean, the DC District Court is probably the most important district court in the country, no?)

    For things in the judiciary to keep us entertained for two weeks:

    -While the Senate is out, there are two judges during that break who will be eligible to take the bench, Martinez on the 1st and Yoon on the 4th.

    -We should get nominations by the White House either next Wednesday for a hearing on 7/24, if not on 7/3 if they have a 7/31 hearing instead, the White House does have two weeks to get out nominees for a second July hearing.

    -The SCOTUS term winds down, so we’ll be entertained (frightened) with how the remaining cases are handed down. Maybe a surprise Sotomayor retirement?

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    • Yes, I predict the next batch to come the week of July 3. The WH likely wants to ensure it’s as big as it can be to work in as many nominees as possible. Those hearing slots are dwindling so they’ll want to be as efficient as possible.

      Right now there are only 10 vacancies that don’t require blue slips that are lacking nominees. If you count a replacement for Kanter and a possible nominee for the New Mexico seat that isn’t vacant until January 25, then it’s 12. Ideally, they’ll want to get 4-5 in the next batch to give themselves wiggle room later.

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    • I’d still think it’s more likely than not she’s confirmed that Monday, since attendance is a bit lighter. Worst case is that she’s confirmed at a later date, since cloture has already been invoked they’d need to just re-vote on confirmation and not go through cloture. If confirmed on Monday I wonder if it’s logically possible for Perry to be submitted that Tuesday and then appear the Wednesday after, not sure if it’s either A) She’s given a 24-hour notice to appear in DC or B) She has advance notice that Maldonado would be confirmed on Monday and to plan for a possible trip to DC?

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  35. Wanted to add my thoughts on a few things.
    1) It’s clear at this point no Circuit Court nominee is going to have any kind of Republican support and they will be smeared as pro-crime, socialist etc. no matter what, something some Democratic senators should keep in mind when Republicans say they’ll attack them on certain nominees like they did with Mangi and others.

    2) Along those lines, Dequan is 100% right.
    Move Campbell and some of the others alone ASAP instead of letting them linger like Mangi did,

    3) You wish Kasubhai had been set up to be confirmed today because he and a couple of other tough votes could have been confirmed but it is what it is.
    Let’s see where we are on July 8 and beyond.

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      • Let’s not forget Lipez had more than reasonable responses. She said state law mandated her to give one of the sentences she gave & the prosecutors asked for the other sentence she gave.

        I’m not well versed in Maine law but something tells me one look at it related to that specific case would show Lipez was correct. As for the other case, Kennedy didn’t even know he, not Lipez was incorrect when pronouncing Michael Smith’s name. I more than believe her when she said prosecutors asked for the sentence she issued. There is no reason to believe Lipez won’t get Collins (And then Manchin with his stupid rule) vote.

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