Judge Anthony Brindisi – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York

While comparatively uncommon, former members of the House of Representatives have, on occasion, been nominated to be federal judges. Former New York Congressman Anthony Brindisi is the first former member of the House to be nominated to the federal bench since James Rogan in 2007, and, if confirmed, would be the first on the bench since Judge William Martini was confirmed in 2002.

Background

Born November 22, 1978, in Utica, Anthony Joseph Brindisi got his Bachelor of Arts from Siena College in 2000 and went on to earn his J.D. from Albany Law School in 2004. After law school, Brindisi joined his father’s firm, Brindisi, Murad & Brindisi Pearlman. He continued to work there until his election to the U.S. House in 2018.

After leaving the House in 2021, Brindisi rejoined the firm. In 2022, he was appointed to the New York State Court of Claims, where he serves.

Brindisi also served in the New York State Assembly between 2011 and 2019, and in the U.S. House of Representatives between 2019 and 2021.

History of the Seat

Brindisi has been nominated to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. This seat will be vacated when Judge David Hurd takes senior status. The Biden Administration previously appointed New York Assistant Attorney General Jorge Rodriguez to replace Hurd in 2022. However, Hurd took exception to the fact that Rodriguez was not based out of Utica and withdrew his intention to take senior status. In 2024, Hurd again indicated his willingness to take senior status upon confirmation of a successor.

Legal Experience

Between 2004 and 2018, and again from 2021 to 2022, Brindisi practiced law at his father’s firm in Utica. At the firm, Brindisi handled civil litigation, for example, representing the family of a girl struck by a motor vehicle in a suit against a municipality for failing to reduce speed limits or posting signs for children at play. See Dennis v. VanSteinburg, 2009 NY Slip Op (NY Appellate Div., 4th Dept. 2009). Brindisi’s work also encompassed appellate work, as well as trial level litigation. See, e.g., Scaparo v. Village of Ilion, 921 N.E.2d 590 (N.Y. App. 2009).

Jurisprudence

Brindisi has served as a judge on the New York State Court of Claims since Governor Kathy Hochul appointed him to the court in 2022. The New York Court of Claims is a specialized court that handles civil claims against the state and state agencies, where judges serve for nine year terms. Among the few opinions of Brindisi that are available for review, he granted a motion to dismiss claims arising from alleged sexual abuse suffered by the plaintiff in a correctional institution. See RS v. State of New York, 2024 Slip Op. 50859 (NY: Court of Claims 2024). In the opinion, Brindisi found that the claims were barred as untimely as they were served outside the one-year window that New York law permitted. See id. Brindisi noted that he was “sympathetic to claimant” but lacked the discretion under the law to waive the jurisdictional requirements of the law. See id.

Political Activity

Unlike most judicial nominees, Brindisi has an extensive political history, to include a list of public statements on most issues that is too long to detail here. A summary of Brindisi’s political history is below.

From 2011 to 2018, Brindisi served in the New York State Assembly, which is the lower house of the legislature. In this position, Brindisi generally earned a reputation as a moderate, For example, Brindisi described himself as a “strong supporter of the Second Amendment” and opposed the New York Securing Ammunitions and Firearms Act, criticizing the law for a lack of due process. See NY-22 Minute: Brindisi Questioned on Gun Policy By Luke Perry, Utica University Center of Public Affairs and Election Research, Mar. 9, 2018, https://www.ucpublicaffairs.com/home/2018/3/9/ny-22-minute-brindisi-questioned-on-gun-policy-by-luke-perry.

From 2019 to 2021, Brindisi served in the U.S. House. Notably, while in the House, Brindisi voted to impeach former President Donald Trump on both counts in 2019. See Mark Weiner, Rep. John Katko, Anthony Brindisi Split on Trump Impeachment Vote, Syracuse.com, Dec. 18, 2019, https://www.syracuse.com/news/2019/12/rep-john-katko-anthony-brindisi-split-on-trump-impeachment-vote.html. Brindisi subsequently lost his re-election in 2020 by a razor thin margin.

In 2021, Brindisi ran for a seat on the New York State Supreme Court, losing to Syracuse attorney Danielle Fogel, who was a childhood friend of Brindisi’s. See Douglass Dowty, Syracuse Lawyer Fogel Wins ‘Dream Job’ on State Supreme Court Against Ex-Congressman Brindisi, Syracuse.com, Nov. 2, 2021, https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2021/11/syracuse-lawyer-fogel-wins-dream-job-on-state-supreme-court-against-ex-congressman-brindisi.html.

Overall Assessment

The last two ex-Congressmen to be nominated for the federal bench had very different trajectories onto the bench. Martini was confirmed comfortably with no controversy, while Rogan’s nomination stalled due to the lack of support of his home state senator.

For his part, Brindisi’s path of the bench is likely to track in between the previous two. He is expected to get a hearing. However, such a hearing is likely to draw significant questioning based on his political stances. Given the rapidly closing window for judicial confirmations, it remains to be seen if Brindisi will be confirmed in time.

709 Comments

    • tsb1991's avatar

      Decent chance it’s attendance, Coons wasn’t around for any of the votes today and they’d need him at the SJC meeting tomorrow to get Park out.

      Pretty long wait for wrap-up tonight. Not that I’m expecting any cloture motions but I figured tonight would be short and sweet, unless they’re trying to figure out the schedule for tomorrow (best case is cloture on Perry in the morning and then confirmation in the afternoon), or somehow trying to get some nominees voice voted (two Postal Commissioners were voice voted earlier today).

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Dequan's avatar

    Schumer just wrapped up. Cloture motion for April Perry was withdrawn. They will vote on her when the senate returns bypassing a cloture vote. The following cloture motions were sent;

    Jonathan Hawley

    Office of government of ethics nominee

    Cathy Fung – Tax Court

    Like

  3. tsb1991's avatar

    Schumer wrapping up. Cloture was withdrawn on Perry and she will get a confirmation vote when the Senate returns after the election.

    Cloture also filed on Hawley and one of the Tax Court nominees, and some Ethics Office nominee.

    The two other Tax Court nominees were just confirmed on a voice vote.

    Sounds like they’re heading out tonight and won’t be back tomorrow?

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Rick's avatar

    And the next budget fight will occur in the last week of Dec. as the budget runs thru Dec 20th.

    So we have all the circuit court nominees remaining plus a dozen of the better District Court nominees and Schumer keeps filing cloture on the easy nominees. Is there even a plan to confirm the aforementioned circuit and District court nominees.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. tsb1991's avatar

    Well, the next time the Senate is back, could very well be during an official lame duck for the Democratic Majority. Might very well be Tester and Brown’s last few weeks as Senators, and we know Manchin, Carper, Cardin, Butler, and Stabenow are all headed out the door at the end of the year (Helmy too).

    Also, the Senate passed a resolution in honor of the late Jim Sasser, who I didn’t know passed away on the 10th of this month. He was the last Democratic Senator from Tennessee if I remember and was washed away with many other southern Democrats in the 1994 midterm wave. I found George Mitchell’s tribute to him in the 1994 lame duck a while back, Sasser had chaired the Budget Committee and called that the toughest job a Senator could get lol (considering how Congress funds the government these days I’m sure the Budget Committee is far less powerful now).

    In terms of the judiciary, if the SJC does have one more hearing in them, we’d need nominees by 10/13 by the latest, so three weeks from now. At a bare minimum we’d need a 3rd Circuit nominee for the DE seat, maybe something shocking happens and Kanter/Netburn/even Mangi withdraw and allow Biden to name replacements?

    For commissions, we now have three confirmed Tax Court judges who will need commissions, in addition to Vargas, Court, and Conway. Shanlyn Park, confirmed to DHI all the way back last November, will be eligible to take the bench on 10/9.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Mike's avatar

    They confirmed 8 judges in 3 weeks with near full Dem attendance, 1-2 constant GOP absences and only needing about 1-1.5 days on the CR bill.

    Fun fact: McConnell confirmed 15 judges (+ 1 more Fed Claims) in Sept 2020, 6 in Nov and 6 in Dec (+4 more Fed Claims).

    Sure hope Chuck can at least confirm 12 judges in the lame duck as McConnell ran out of judges to confirm at the end of his term.

    Glad they got two more tax judges cleared out of the pipeline, sucks the GOP wouldn’t let 2 out of the worryingly large 8 DC superior court vacancies get voice voted.

    I get wanting to let senators get home to their families before the storm, but this is when you USE LEVERAGE Chuck and force an voice vote or a confirmation tonight to confirm Perry!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    • tsb1991's avatar

      On the topic of the 2020 lame duck, I happened to look at the final executive calendar of that Congress a while back, and I noticed there were two district judges not confirmed: Togliatti to the District of Nevada (reported out of the SJC 5/14/2020) and Jonglbloed to Connecticut (reported out in 2019). These both would have been blue-state nominees with blue slips from CCM/Rosen in Nevada and Murphy/Blumenthal in CT. If I recall the blue state district nominees during the Trump presidency were typically either voice voted/unanimous/near-unanimous votes. Jongbloed was voice voted out of the SJC while Tagliotti was a 15-7 vote out of the SJC with all no votes being from Republicans.

      How did they not get confirmed? My first guess was maybe it was retaliation for confirming Barret to SCOTUS (and withholding any effort to expedite the nominees), and that McConnell wouldn’t file cloture on them in response, but as I mentioned, both of them were voted out of the SJC way before RBG passed away where that would have been an issue.

      Apart from that the only nominees pending on the calendar at the end of 2020 were Federal Claims/local DC judges.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. star0garnet's avatar

    While it’s far from the most exciting topic, this will mean the tax court is entering one of the least conservative periods in its history. Tax lawyers are one of the more conservative (Reagan-esque) groups of professionals I run across, so it’s perhaps fitting, but I believe this is just the fourth time in its century-long history where a majority of judges will have been appointed by Democrats (not that appointing party means a lot in this case, at least historically). The previous periods (1936-1956, 1967-1971, 2013-2020) add up to a little over 30 years.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. rob's avatar

    One small positive bit of news April Perry only requires a confirmation vote. So one less vote to take there.

    I just worry about if VP Harris wins how available she will be for tie breaking votes as she will no doubt have a lot of work to do in preparation for her presidency.

    If the Dems lose the senate but VP Harris wins (as others have predicted before) I imagine some cabinet nominees may be try and confirmed while the Dems control the senate however that depends on Manchin and Sinema playing nice and that will no doubt take time away from confirming judges.

    If Trump wins the focus needs to be on confirming every possible judge and other positions that will outlast his presidency or a large part of it like FEC,FED Governors or Postal Service Governors.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Mike's avatar

      Yeah but that doesn’t really mean anything because instead of a cloture vote followed by confirmation tomorrow, she’ll be confirmed at 5:30 on Tuesday in November.

      The only difference is letting senators go home and making Perry wait 6 weeks. This is a favor to the GOP and I’m hoping the Dems only allowed it in return for voice voting the two tax judges but I doubt it.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        I’m ok with a favor to the GOP but I just think Schumer could have gotten more out of it. At least some of the Superior Court of DC nominees voice voted. He could have threatened to keep the senate in session throughout next week & teed up a couple of circuit court nominees if not. We know for sure Vance, Rounds & both Florida senators would have been out.

        I guess with the uncertain path of the storm he could have been afraid both Ossoff & Warnock might have needed to be out as well so it likely was a mutual request to leave town early. Plus let’s be honest, we know they would want to start the recess early regardless of a storm or not.

        Like

  9. Joe's avatar

    Yeah, it really was a favor to the GOP. Had they stayed in session they could have confirmed Perry today. I guess they did get the tax judges too but I would’ve liked to see more even if it was just ambassadors and administration jobs.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. tsb1991's avatar

    I believe not having cloture on Perry and voice voting the two Tax Court Judges saved six hours of postcloture/floor time? That’s essentially a whole day of the Senate voting on nominations.

    Best case is we get cloture on an appeals court nominee the Tuesday the Senate returns. The cloture motions filed yesterday would cover Wednesday and then probably the Thursday morning vote. Of course attendance will be a huge question mark then, Vance will no longer need to campaign for example. If Harris wins it could affect her availability to break ties since it’ll be during her transition period (although I’m not sure how a transition from the current President to the current VP would look like).

    Also, I forgot to mention this earlier in the week but Rounds did return, he was in attendance all of this week if I remember.

    Since the SJC meeting today got cancelled, the next meeting on 11/14 I think would be to vote Park out and hold over every nominee from yesterday’s hearing. Also a chance that meeting is cancelled and Park gets voted out with everyone else on the 11/21 hearing.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Mike's avatar

    Per ACS

    “The Biden-Harris Administration is at 213 Article III confirmations. On this date during the Trump Administration, there were 218 confirmations. The current administration is now only 21 short of matching the previous administration’s four-year total.”

    Strongly doubt they’re confirming 20 (+ Perry) judges in 5 weeks with an annual budget deadline set for Dec 20th unless Manchin completely changes his rule.

    This is not including the 8 DC superior court nominees.

    Liked by 1 person

    • tsb1991's avatar

      If you remember earlier in the week where the Senate voted to confirm of all things, that Arctic Ambassador, which I know got some laughs from people around here. Funny enough Lisa Murkowski (who voted to confirm the ambassador) posted afterwards about how important the confirmation was and congratulated the person, makes sense given her proximity to the arctic. I’ll just paste the Tweet and not the link given the issues with linking things here but:

      “why is Schumer wasting floor time on this random north pole ambassado— ohhhh”

      (there was a also a picture of Murkowski with the nominee on that tweet)

      Not that she’d ever do it but if the Senate is 51R-49D I’m sure a lot of pressure would be directed her way to pull a Jim Jeffords. I mean, she can only defy the dislike Republican voters back home (who have tried to primary here every time she’s up) have at her for only so long, no?

      Liked by 2 people

  14. dawsont825's avatar

    I saw an article a few days ago, or it could’ve been one of the few judiciary-focused reporters on Twitter… anyway. I think it was pertaining to the recent cancellation of the SJC executive session. It was basically about how Sen. Tillis’ pledge to sink Ryan Park’s nomination was coming to fruition.

    I’m pretty sure I remember that at the time of Ryan Park’s nomination and vetting, Tillis came out and said that he had secured the votes of a few Dem senators to oppose Park. There was a lengthy discussion on here about it, but I think the gist of the debate was that we all called Tillis’ bluff. It’s no secret that Manchin would vote against an overtly liberal nominee, *especially* one from a red state who did not secure the approval of their home state senators. So, if he bragged about getting a “no” vote from an already problematic senator, then congrats to him on such an arduous task. I recall him saying that he already had 2 “no” votes and the only other problematic senator would be Sinema.

    My apologies for rehashing an old debate, but is that enough to sink Park? Manchin voted yes on Ritz for the 6th circuit due to the GOP’s objections and whining about the political ramifications of the nomination and not on Ritz’s qualifications or record. Could that be the model to get Manchin’s vote whenever they try and get him through the SJC and the full senate??

    Liked by 1 person

  15. tsb1991's avatar

    In terms of two cases involving a former President and an elected official, it sounds like Aileen Cannon got assigned the case of the 2nd Trump assassin. I’d put some good money down she probably writes her ruling down with crayon on a piece of construction paper before the trial is held, mandating that the assassin swallow a grenade with the pin pulled whole without a need for the prosecution to prove him guilty or go to a jury, and probably order all of his financial assets get seized and donated to the Trump campaign.

    On the flipside, it sounds like Dale Ho was assigned the Eric Adams corruption case in NY? It’d be funny if he handled the case like Cannon did with Trump, but I don’t think he’d actually do that lol. In fact, a good chance that a federal judge appointed by Biden, confirmed by a Democratic Senate with no Republican votes (and even one Democratic no vote), a case brought forward by a Democratic attorney, comes down hard on the Democratic mayor of the biggest city in the country, if you’ve ever wondered about asymmetry.

    Liked by 3 people

  17. JJ28's avatar

    What are the last nominations we should expect by the mid-October WH deadline for the Nov. SJC hearing? The CA3 and the two California vacancies (three if Biden replaces the Kanter nom)? Should we reasonably expect at this point any (other) renoms?

    I know this has been addressed earlier on this thread, and I’ve read all 600+ comments over the last weeks, but maybe people’s thoughts have evolved.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      The latest, drop-dead date we can get a new batch & reasonable expect all of those nominees to get confirmed would be October 23rd. It would be better to get the batch before October 16th however, to leave a little breathing room for anything that could go wrong (Attendance issues in the SJC for instance).

      As for what seats we can expect nominees for, I haven’t seen any hint that Sarah Netburn or Rebecca Kanther’s nomination will be pulled & replaced this year. I think it is much more likely her nomination will just expire. So I would expect the last batch to be the following;

      3rd – Delaware

      09 – CA-C

      09 – CA-S

      Of course that only includes Article III seats. We could see the final Superior Court of DC nominee. Any other nominees would include a red stated senator needing to sign off. I doubt we will get that in the last batch. If I had to pick a possible surprise seat to get a nominee for, I could see it coming from Alaska or Texas but again I doubt either.

      Liked by 1 person

  18. JJ28's avatar

    And don’t get me started on my distaste for how Schumer performs as majority leader. He wastes so much time I can’t stand it. At the very least, with Vance and Rounds out for those two weeks, he should have had the Senate invoke cloture on Kidd, Campbell, Lipez, and maybe Wise. With the CCA noms’ cloture invoked, he could have used up clock at the start and end of each day with the intention of confirming them after the election. With Wise (a stretch, perhaps, though depending on the Dem whip count and their own attendance) he may have also been able to confirm her pre-break. If not Wise, then Russell, Ali, or Sooknanen.

    He should schedule two votes on the fly-in days, pressing numbers advantages then too, though Fetterman would have to be spoken to. And he should schedule votes at 8AM, before the committee meetings begin. This is what Mitch did. This is what, say, a Majority Leader Warren would do.

    And I’ve argued this here in the past, and it makes me absolutely nuts, but he should (earlier in the session) schedule cloture votes on the tough nominees, be willing to lose them (and maybe get a surprise win depending on absences), and maneuver to change his vote in order to bring the vote back up on a motion to reconsider (which can then be brought up immediately). He could have had Mangi’s cloture vote waiting like that for Juneteenth (or Julie Su’s for that matter). But he just doesn’t play the rules like Mitch, and Dems lose out more often for it.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. star0garnet's avatar

    Do we think the WH was purposefully saving California nominations for a final batch, or do we think a bunch of recs sent by the senators failed their background checks? Obviously Kanter should have failed hers, and that article Wise wrote for Time makes her confirmation more trouble than an older nominee’s worth.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      If I had to guess, Padilla & Butler haven’t merged their commissions. It’s likely they still have separate commissions which is extremely time consuming. It would be more beneficial if they had some similar deal like New York. Maybe not 3 for 1 since Schumer is so much more senior than Gillibrand. I think a 2 for 1 deal would be better for Padilla & Schiff if not 1 for 1.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. tsb1991's avatar

    Jimmy Carter will turn 100 come midnight. He’s actually a critical voter, given his home state is a battleground. Sucks that he never got any SCOTUS appointments, something I still think we’re reeling from today. Two of his appeals court appointments did turn out to be future SCOTUS justices, so he does have that in his judicial legacy. One of which, Breyer, was both nominated and confirmed during the lame duck where he had lost re-election and Democrats had lost control of the Senate. Kind of surprised that actually went through, given 60 votes was needed for cloture at the time and Republicans could easily have blocked that.

    I also saw it’s been one year since Feinstein had passed. I still remember watching her live on the Senate floor cast her final vote, not knowing at the time that’d be the last time I’d see her cast a vote. During the time when the Senate was holding votes on party-line nominees (Abudu, Ho, Bloomekatz, etc, I didn’t rest until I saw her enter the chamber and vote, at that point I’d knew the current vote would pass lol

    Also, given how catastrophic Helene has been across the south, I wonder if there’s any chance Congress comes back during the break to pass any additional aid. Not that I think any nominations could be confirmed then but if they do need additional aid it’d suck to have to wait at least a month and a half for it.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      Happy birthday President Carter. I think he easily has been the best post president of all time. I too really wish he wasn’t one of the four presidents that never got a Supreme Court pick. He would have picked a phenomenal Justice I’m sure. He started the trend of presidents putting woman & people of color on the lower courts & I’m happy President Biden has taken that ball & run with it.

      To answer the last question, no Congress won’t be returning before the election to pass Hurricane Helen aid. The answer is really Hell no… Lol

      Liked by 1 person

      • Zack's avatar

        @Dequan,
        Carter did try to get Thurgood Marshall to retire but Marshall refused, figuring he could outlast eight years of a Republican president.
        He was right but he didn’t forsee that Reagan’s coattails and Willie Horton would give Republicans four more years.
        Sadly, he was in such poor health and the poll numbers for George Sr were so good at the time he didn’t see any point in hanging on.
        Wish he had, we could have been spared Thomas altogether.
        If nothing else, (though it’s over and done with) it’s why many of us still are angry with RBG.
        You had an example of what could happen if you roll the dice and guess wrong but she choose to believe it couldn’t happen to her.
        And we’ll all be paying for that for decades.

        Liked by 3 people

      • tsb1991's avatar

        Apparently Biden during a press conference today was talking about the possibility of calling Congress back, which it is in a President’s power to call Congress into session, no?

        On the topic of SCOTUS appointments, there was an article today from CNN on how a Republican Senate would approach any possible Harris SCOTUS nominations. The two leading Republican Senate Leader candidates, Thune and Cornyn, both sounded non-committal. It’s legit terrifying that these kinds of questions have to be asked, SCOTUS nominees and federal judges were routinely confirmed in the past 50 or so years by a Senate controlled by the opposite party of the President (every Nixon, Ford, Kennedy from Reagan, and Bush Sr appointee would have been confirmed by a Democratic Senate). I do honestly wonder how the Republican Senate from 1995-2001 during Clinton’s presidency would have handled a SCOTUS vacancy.

        Given Republicans paid no political price for the Garland blockade, if they adopt the position of “Kamala Harris will not have any SCOTUS nominees confirmed at any point in her presidency”, maybe that could cause a midterm backlash? Especially if Republicans only have 51 Senate seats and Democrats would only need to flip one seat in 2026 for control, do they really want to put Susan Collins in a position of defending any blockade by Senate Republicans?

        Liked by 3 people

    • Ryan J's avatar

      Carter is one of few presidents whose judges did not outlast him. None still hold the seat that Carter appointed them to, and only a handful are still hearing cases in senior status.

      I know we’ve talked about this before, but I think Carter would have appointed the first woman to SCOTUS had he been given the opportunity. His lack of SCOTUS appointments was mainly bad luck — unlike Democrat presidents after him, he faced neither (1) a GOP senate determined to block anyone he nominated to SCOTUS or (2) a hyper-conservative SCOTUS with justices who are holding out until a Republican is in office

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        I didn’t even think of that but you’re right. None of Carter’s Article III judges are still in active status. He must be the only president ever to be able to say that. Amazing life. Happy 100th birthday Mr. President. He was in office when I was born. I’m happy I got to be alive for exactly his last 4 months in office.

        Liked by 1 person

  21. Zack's avatar

    @Tsb1991, despite the polling miss in the 2020 Senate race, Susan Collins share of crossover votes dropped by a lot to where there are red flags for her.
    The gutting of Roe will only make that worse and as split ticket becomes less and less of a thing, I see that catching up with her too, especially if Republicans try this now that many folks know what a right wing SCOTUS will do.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. star0garnet's avatar

    Not counting WH Harrison, who didn’t appoint any judges, the closest anybody had come was Fillmore. He appointed six judges and outlived one of them (his good friend) by a week, leaving just one on the bench when he died.

    Hoover came pretty close to the same distinction as Carter; one went senior two weeks after he died, leaving one holdout who stayed active for another two and half years.

    Like

      • star0garnet's avatar

        It stands out even more than I thought. Since the advent of the modern appellate system, we’ve had:

        Harrison: 1901–>1938 (37.2 years)
        Cleveland: 1908–>1928 (19.9 years)
        McKinley: 1901–>1935 (34.3 years)
        Teddy: 1919–>1942 (23.6 years)
        Taft: 1930–>1951 (21.2 years)
        Wilson: 1924–>1964 (40.8 years)
        Harding: 1923–>1965 (42.0 years)
        Coolidge: 1933–>1959 (26.5 years)
        Hoover: 1964–>1967 (2.4 years)
        FDR: 1945–>1981 (36.2 years)
        Truman: 1972–>1994 (21.8 years)
        Ike: 1969–>1999 (30.2 years)
        JFK: 1963–>2000 (37.1 years)
        LBJ: 1973–>2018 (45.8 years)
        Nixon: 1994–>2019 (25.6 years)
        Ford: 2006–>2020 (13.9 years)
        Carter: ?<–2023 (-1.6+ years)
        Reagan: 2004–>? (20.3+ years, 13 remaining)
        HW: 2018–>? (5.8+ years, 12 remaining)

        Liked by 1 person

  24. Joe's avatar

    I believe Jose Cabranes (who was promoted under Clinton) was the last former Carter judge to still be in active service, wasn’t he? Of course Stephen Breyer was another.

    I’m not sure who the last Reagan judge will be. I suspect we won’t find out until the next GOP President. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Frank Easterbrook.

    The last HW judge will probably be Clarence Thomas or Sonia Sotomayor.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. star0garnet's avatar

    Something I hadn’t considered:

    A Harris win would up the probability of Clarence Thomas setting a new record for SCOTUS service to over 90%. He’s currently the 10th-longest serving justice, would pass another eight within two years, and pass William O. Douglas in May 2028, before his 80th birthday.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. raylodato's avatar

    Happy October everybody! We enter the month with another vacancy in EDLA–there are now 3, with 5D & 4R active appointees. If Harris wins and can get an agreement with Kennedy and Cassidy, she could prevent this court from going FedSoc for a long stretch.

    There are 3 other vacancies that will open up before Election Day–AZ, CDCA, & MDFL. Each of these would be a D flip if Sen Dems/Harris are able to fill them. AZ & CDCA have nominees, while MDFL does not.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ryan J's avatar

      It looks like both liberals and conservatives are announcing senior status dates in 2025, which suggests that both sides may be confident about their party winning the election (though in a lot of these cases the judge is going senior as soon as they are eligible).

      District judges also seem to not care as much which party picks their successor. Many GOP district judges, including hard-right conservatives such as Michael Mosman, Cormac Carney, & Anthony Trenga, took senior status under Biden. Only 8 GOP circuit judges have vacated/announced vacancy under Biden — out of those 8, 2 are liberal leaning and 2 others are deceased. Likewise, most of the Dem circuit vacancies under Trump occurred either due to death or due to Turtle & the GOP holding the seats open (though there were several conservative Dems who went senior under Trump).

      There’s 1 other notable difference – there’s a lot more announcements in late 2024 than there were in late 2020. The liberal judges who wanted Biden to pick their successor waited until at least Jan. 20th, as Senate control was up in the air. However, there’s another subtle detail in here: confidence on when the vacancy will be filled. Liberal judges holding out suggests that they believed that Trump & McConnell could quickly fill their seats if they vacated, whereas some conservative judges (especially those in states with GOP blue slips) appear confident that Biden will not fill their seat.

      Liked by 1 person

      • star0garnet's avatar

        From July 17, 2020 (Federico Moreno going senior) to October 23, 2020 (Larry Burns announcing he was going senior), Theresa Springmann was the only Article III judge who’d announced they were going senior/retiring, and she’d announced in October 2019. We’re sitting at 23 or 24 announced future senior statuses/retirements, depending on whether you count Loretta Biggs, including a dozen with a specific date. With that said, Crabtree and Torresen are going senior the week they qualify (like Springmann did), so I don’t think their announcements mean much.

        Liked by 2 people

    • Ryan J's avatar

      I think there’s some kind of threshold for where SCOTUS jumps in. If Harris wins the tipping point state by <1000 votes, SCOTUS will hand it to Trump. If Harris wins by the same margins as Biden, SCOTUS won't overturn it. My guess for the threshold is somewhere between 0.01% and 0.1% (meaning that if Harris can win the tipping point state by 0.1%, which is roughly 4000-7000 votes, SCOTUS is unlikely to overturn the election)

      Liked by 1 person

  34. Zack's avatar

    I liked John Oliver’s report on judges but in the same breath, it still goes back to a major issue when talking about the courts and that is the rot on them has been going on a long time and that any Republican would have put the same people on it.
    They aren’t Trump/MAGA judges.
    They are Federalist Society hacks who have been part of a long term project that folks let happen right under their noses.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Joe's avatar

    Yes, I don’t think any of Trumps judicial picks were ones that wouldn’t also have been made by Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had they won in 2016. The only thing that will stop hacks like this from being nominated and placed on the bench is Democrats winning the presidency and/or the senate to block republicans from doing so..

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Welcome. No I believe this is the longest we have gone without new write up. I think it’s a coin flip to see what will happen first, the last batch from the White House or a new write up here. As to the former, even though the week after next is the drop dead last date we could get new nominees & still then confirmed this year, I still hope we get the batch next week instead. We need to leave for on for error such as attendance issues in the SJC.

      I also would like to give some advice to chairman Durbin. When the senate returns for the two week session before the Thanksgiving week off, he should not only hold the SJC hearing for the final batch on the first of the two weeks, it he should also hold it on Tuesday, November 12th instead of Wednesday. That way he could hold the nominees over the following Thursday, November 21st. That would give them another week to be confirmed by just holding the hearing on a Tuesday versus a Wednesday.

      Like

  37. tsb1991's avatar

    Arebeit and Guider both started on the Tax Court on the 3rd (the two nominees who were voice voted right before the break).

    For the remaining pending commissions, Jenkins on the Tax Court is still awaiting one, in addition to Vargas, Court, and Conway. Also during the break, Shanlyn in Hawaii will be eligible to take the bench on the 9th.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Mike S.'s avatar

        I think race, gender and identify are important factors in the sense of a more diverse and representative judiciary. You don’t nominate someone solely because of their skin color, they have to qualify on the merits. However, I think what Biden has done very well is that he has nominated groups of people that have been historically under represented on the bench, and that’s extremely important, so long as it’s not at the expense of quality. When you look at the nominees we have gotten so far, especially compared to some of the Fed Society hacks we got from Trump, I don’t think anyone can make the argument that these folks are unqualified.

        Interesting that Trump has not released a 2024 Supreme Court list like he did previously. So many of his far right judges have resulted in long lasting damage to the judiciary (I’m looking at you, Fifth Circuit), and it’s so important we have a President Harris and Dem senate to prevent that from happening again.

        Liked by 2 people

  40. Rick's avatar

    If you remember the Peanuts cartoon series, you certainly remember Charlie Brown ALWAYS got the football pulled by Lucy every time he went to kick it.

    So I’m going to be Charlie Brown and fall for this Schumer statement.

    ““We are going to use the lame duck to confirm judges. And we’re going to do everything we can to get as many judges done as possible, trying to overcome the Republican obstruction,” Schumer told NBC News in a recent interview.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/president-poised-inherit-fewest-judicial-vacancies-generations-rcna169049

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Imagine if he had that same energy last Summer… Or this Summer… Or on Monday’s before 5:30pm… Or on Thursday’s after 3:00pm… Or on Friday’s.

      Then we could have been spending the lame duck confirming hopefully President-elect Harris cabinet members & the small number of judges we would want to wait until after the election to confirm like Mangi.

      Liked by 1 person

      • raylodato's avatar

        I don’t think anyone disputes that Schumer *says* nominees are the highest priority–he’s said that a lot.

        It just seems like he misses opportunities to either confirm party-line nominees (when there are GOP absences) or bipartisan ones (to run up the numbers and clear the slate). Dequan has some great ideas to how he could do this–add another vote on Mondays and/or Thursdays, schedule a Friday once in a while just for nominees, etc. Schumer seems to think that saying he wants to confirm nominees gets him credit rather than the actual confirmations themselves.

        Still hoping they get over 234 and, more particularly, all the CCA nominees (and possibly the other CCA-3 seat), but Schumer has to be much more intentional.

        Liked by 2 people

  41. Anthony Myrlados's avatar

    What do you all think of this potential nominee? Shannon Thornhill Brown to fill the vacancy in Shreveport in the Western District of Louisiana.

    Resume:

    -Chief of the Civil Division, US Attorney’s Office, WDLA since 2022.

    -AUSA, WDLA.

    -Worked at two law firms before becoming an AUSA, with experience in labor, employment, Title VII and discrimination, wage + entitlements dispute, business disputes, and corporate litigation.

    -Served under U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump and Biden.

    -Was part of a successful $22 million settlement with a pharmaceuticals manufacturer in 2019 over alleged mishandling of opioid distribution, where she was personally thanked by the then-Republican US Attorney for WDLA.

    Link: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdla/pr/us-attorney-david-c-joseph-announces-settlement-louisiana-drug-distributor-resolving

    Basically, a fantastic bi-partisan nominee that I believe can get the blue slip from the two Republicans in Louisiana. Thoughts?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Shannon Thornhill Brown seems like a good compromise pick. She was born c. 1984 so that might be a stretch for two Republican senators. Se would be the youngest red state Democrat district court pick ever but Kennedy (When he takes his meds) & Cassidy have been reasonable on judges in their own state so I wouldn’t rule her out. Plus I believe all of the active judges in the WDLA are male so it’s almost assured a President Harris would push for a woman.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Humanfault's avatar

        Kennedy is one of the senators who I believe on a personal level doesn’t actually have too much of a problem with Democratic appointed federal judges. He’s obviously a partisan Republican and plays into that often but when it comes to leading judicial nominees in his home state he’s been very amicable. Probably resulting in the most liberal red-state nominees of any other senior red-state senator. He historically was even the reason why some of Trump’s unqualified nominees didn’t see confirmation and why even when some of Biden’s nominees were facing truly baseless attacks (even more so than typical baseless attacks against them) Like with Andre Mathis he ended up supporting them.

        It comes off to me at least that Kennedy plays up the Southern Republican schtick a lot for the general partisanship of his state more so than his actually held beliefs. His questioning at the judiciary hearings seem to me to be pretty emblematic of it. I still remember when Kennedy was making a big fuss over some minor liberal position made by a nominee from back when they were in college, Durbin or Whitehouse or one of those senators made a comment along the lines of “When that comment was made Senator Kennedy was still a Democrat”. The look on Kennedy’s face showed him clearly fuming about that being brought up when even just a cursory look at his political history will show that he was elected statewide as a Democrat and even supported John Kerry for President.

        When push comes to shove, he can say stuff like “Biden’s nominees got their law degrees from a bargain bin”, but he still ends up praising pretty broadly liberal nominees like Arun Subramanian or Darrell Papillion. The fact there wasn’t even one of those 3 for 1 liberal-conservative judicial splits despite the fact he easily could have pushed for such if it he wanted makes me feel pretty confident, he’ll be pretty open to judicial nominees under a potential Harris administration. Provided democrats win the Senate of course

        Liked by 1 person

      • keystone's avatar

        Kennedy is has a pretty dismal record when it comes to supporting female nominees. Yes, Yes, you’re gonna say, but look at Dana Douglas. Her aside, Biden has nominated an unprecedented number of women judges from a wide array of backgrounds, career paths, and political ideologies and Kennedy has supported hardly any of them. Even look at the way he questions them. Have you not noticed that his professor Kennedy questions are almost always reserved for female candidates (and an occasional male POC candidate).

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a reply to Ryan J Cancel reply