Sarah Davenport – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico

Las Cruces based federal prosecutor Sarah Davenport is hoping to make it onto the federal bench before the end of 2024.

Background

Born in Hobbs in Southern New Mexico, Davenport received his B.A. from New Mexico State University in 1998 and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2006. Since then, Davenport has worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico, starting as a law clerk, and then working as an AUSA, and currently as a Supervisory AUSA.

History of the Seat

Davenport has been nominated for a future vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. This seat will open when Judge William Johnson, who will take senior status upon the confirmation of a successor.

Legal Career

Davenport has spent her entire legal career at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico, specifically working in the Las Cruces office in Southern New Mexico, where she worked on criminal prosecutions. During her tenure, Davenport tried four jury trials to verdict, including the prosecution of Jessie Marquez for participation in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. See United States v. Marquez, 898 F.3d 1036 (10th Cir. 2018). After being convicted at trial, Marquez appealed, and Davenport briefed and argued the appeal before the Tenth Circuit, which ended in an affirmance. See id.

Among other matters, Davenport represented the U.S. Attorney’s Office in defending against challenges to pre-trial detention. See, e.g., United States v. Perez, 785 F. Supp. 2d 1177 (D.N.M. 2011) (Browning, J.) (denying motion for release).

Overall Assessment

Given her background as a federal prosecutor, Davenport appears to have the background in the criminal litigation that makes up a significant portion of a federal judge’s docket. Her ultimate chances of confirmation will turn largely on whether Democrats are able to appropriately prioritize it before the end of the Congress.

50 Comments

  1. Dequan's avatar

    This isn’t anywhere near the best nominee for the seat but not a bad choice. The main thing is she is replacing a Republican nominee & he changed the date he will leave the bench from initially after Inauguration Day to before it so it is an upgrade.

    Like

  2. Lillie's avatar

    This isn’t in any way to be rude, but two things:

    1. IN the first sentence there is a male pronoun where throughout the article there are she/her pronouns. I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not but just FYI

    2. It states that Johnson is going senior on confirmation of a successor. It looks like he’s going senior on 1/15/2025.

    I appreciate the good work as always.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Ryan J's avatar

    If Trump won with a 50-50 senate, would it be possible to confirm Biden nominees in his final 17 days? Under such a scenario, Democrats would control the Senate until Jan. 20th, 2025.

    Hypothetically, let’s say that all 50 Democrats and VP Harris are as committed as possible to confirm nominee and would keep the Senate at work 40 hours a week solely to confirm judges, while all 50 Republicans are committed to blocking these last minute confirmations in every way possible (up to and including by attempting to deny Dems a quorum).

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ryan J's avatar

      Of course I wouldn’t trust THIS senate with confirming nominees in Biden’s final 17 days, but if they didn’t have to be renominated and get a judiciary committee vote, this would have been the safer bet for confirming successors to Kent Jordan and Christopher Conner.

      Still, there is a benefit to having a Dem Senate in January 2025 even if it takes the entire month off — it legitimizes late 2024 confirmations to seats that don’t open until Biden’s last few days in office.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Joe's avatar

      Theoretically, yes. But nominees not confirmed before January 3 would have to get voted out of SJC again, be placed on the executive calendar, cloture would have to be filed, and then the senate would have to spend the necessary debate time. In reality it could never really happen unless Schumer takes extreme measures.

      Much more likely that the senate just stays in session in December a few days longer and hammers out nominees that are still left to confirm.

      Liked by 4 people

  5. Mike S.'s avatar

    Totally off topic, but I saw senior Judge Manion of the 7th Circ. died a few weeks ago. In reading his Wikipedia page, I saw this interesting piece on his confirmation:

    The nomination was controversial; Manion was confirmed 48–46 on June 26, 1986 and reaffirmed 50–49 on July 23, 1986 with Vice President Bush casting a tie-breaking vote. Manion received his commission on July 24, 1986.

    I have never heard of a “reaffirming vote” occurring after a nominee is confirmed. Does anyone know the backstory here? I am very curious as to why they had two votes on his nomination…

    Liked by 1 person

      • tsb1991's avatar

        It’s still an enormous gap from an organizing perspective, Manchin still gives you Majority Leader Schumer and Democratic committee chairs.

        If Justice does have any attendance issues, I don’t think it’d be a problem if Harris is President and Republicans win the Senate. In that scenario, any nomination confirmed by the Senate would likely have broad bipartisan support, and Harris would certainly not nominate anybody to any position that would only get Republican votes (where Justice’s attendance would be an issue). From a legislative perspective, any party-line bills Republicans bring up would either fail to get to 60, with or without Justice, or if they pass some reconciliation bill, it wouldn’t get Harris’ signature (and that’s assuming Republicans hold the House, Republicans in the Senate would very likely not pass a reconciliation bill in a D House/R Senate).

        Even if something serious happened to Justice, a Republican would be assured to be appointed to that Senate seat too.

        It reminded me of Lujan’s absence in 2022 after his stroke/heart attack. It didn’t affect Senate control as he was still a sitting Senator, which meant his seat still counted towards Democrats for organizing purposes.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Jamie's avatar

    This is ridiculous! Sinema is using campaign money to take junkets abroad. It has nothing to do with a campaign, given that she’d not running for anything.

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2024/10/15/sen-kyrsten-sinemas-campaign-is-spending-big-on-overseas-travel/75681767007/

    Her voting and attendance record was bad enough, but this kind of abuse should be illegal. Getting rid of Menendez and Sinema for Kim and Gallego will be a huge upgrade.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Mike's avatar

      She probably knows she’ll never run for office in AZ again and wants to spend all her campaigns money instead of donating it to a Pac or giving it to the state Dem party.

      Whatever, she helped give Dems the majority, pass massive landmark bills and Ruben is in good standing to win her seat so I really don’t care at this point.

      I hope she has nothing but good vibes out the door so she can continue to vote alongside Dems for everything.

      Liked by 2 people

    • tsb1991's avatar

      If I had to say something nice about Sinema, it’s that she was the one who more or less broke the ice for Democrats winning statewide in Arizona. Her Senate win in 2018 was the first time Democrats had won a Senate race in Arizona since the 80s. I know for a while Democrats had hyped up Arizona as becoming a swing state but Sinema’s win in 2018 was what finally solidified Arizona’s status as a swing state. Funny enough, that cycle she had a small but consistent lead in the polling which I never believed because my thought was that the red lean of Arizona would win out, and she’d fall heartbreakingly short. While she had her own antics she still gave us a Majority Leader Schumer and Democratic committee chairs.

      It’s the same reason why I’m not putting any stock about Nebraska being some sort of surprise competitive race this year with Osborn, my money is still on the partisanship winning out (since Trump will win the state by 15-20 points) and that’ll be more than enough to get Fischer over the finish line, even if she does underperform. Not sure why Fischer would be in any trouble anyway, she’s a generic, nonoffensive Republican in a solid red state.

      As for Pan going on the DC Circuit, I’m sure Biden’s appointment of her to the DDC was more of a sympathy nomination, since she was voice voted out of the SJC in 2016 and never confirmed by the Republican Senate (she had already been vetted too which probably helps). I wonder how much of her DC Circuit appointment was more of a middle finger to Republicans, in which “You blocked her non-controversial nomination to the federal courts, well how about I put her on the second highest court in the land?”

      Tomorrow might be the biggest day for the judiciary during this October break, if we get any new nominations from Biden.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Remember Pan was also picked because of her who husband is. So both her & Childs have powerful men backing them.

        I am going to be happy & sad tomorrow. I’m always excited to get a new batch (Even when it’s not a great one) but it will be the final batch from Biden. I truly hope we get four more years of a president Harris batches.

        Like

      • tsb1991's avatar

        I know Childs was heavily pushed by Clyburn, I also wonder how much of that nomination was the bill that came due to Biden given that Clyburn resurrected his primary campaign which was on life support by the time it reached South Carolina.

        Another note on Osborn, if he does pull it out and somehow becomes the 50th Senator for Democrats, I know he’d be the Joe Manchin of the caucus, but he’d probably be an upgrade over Nebraska’s last Democratic Senator (Ben Nelson), no?

        Also dropped off my ballot today, sadly it doesn’t mean a whole lot given the state I live in, other than for popular vote purposes (for the presidency and the House, and my House rep is unopposed). The biggest vote I ever cast in a federal race where I live is probably the Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown Senate race in 2012? Got to flip a Senate seat and delay McConnell becoming Majority Leader by two years.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Jamie's avatar

        And what I’m saying is that the senate race in Texas is the analog of 2018 in Arizona. Texas is a redder, but that is neutralized by Ted Cruz being such a dislikable person.

        I don’t expect Allred to behave like Sinema. Sinema’s fate will spook any senator who wants to be reelected (unless you are in a solid red state). But I do expect Allred to be one of the more conservative Democrats in the caucus.

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Jamie's avatar

    The 50th seat is Colin Allred vs Ted Cruz in TX. That’s the seat that the Democrats are most likely to win at this point. Tester still has a chance (I think the polls are underestimating him), and maybe Powell in FL. As far as Osborn, the GOP voters will come home at the end. He’ll be closer than any Democrat since Ben Nelson held the seat, but if he loses by less than 5, it would be surprising. If this was a midterm, Osborn would have a better shot.

    If Osborn pulls out a miracle, it’s not even clear that he’d caucus with the Democrats. He probably would, but he’d be some kind of maverick. I have no idea how though. If you take a look at his issues page, 80% of it would come from a progressive Democrat. The two issues he’s conservative on are guns and immigration. And the rest of it are local items that appeal to conservatives (like “right to repair”).

    Liked by 2 people

  12. Jamie's avatar

    So I wouldn’t say that Childs and Pan were horrible, they aren’t conservatives, just more moderate. As I said, they’re on par with Garland. If one of them replaced Garland, it would have been an even trade. The problem is that the other one replaced someone left of Garland, and that’s not good.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Childs & Pan aren’t conservative, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t horrible picks. It is true neither of them replaced Garland but the judge that did replace him was an A+, which is why I can’t say the court was moved to the right (Going back to the earlier question).

      As for the senate next term, I still feel like the Dems didn’t push hard enough in Texas & Florida, didn’t do more behind the scenes in Nebraska when it looked like Osborn had a shot (Covertly, not overtly helping him) & I still say they should have at least made a play in Tennessee to at least make Blackburn sweat.

      A senator Osborn would be a step up from Manchin. The two aforementioned conservative issues he is on the right of (Guns & immigration) I think you won’t see hurt a Democrat senate majority anyway. A bill on guns isn’t going far & Haris will be to the right of Biden on immigration after she saw how weak she was on that issue against Trump.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Jamie's avatar

        Democrats are apparently pushing hard in Texas now. Apparently both parties see the race as really close and money is going in. Allred also had massively outraised Cruz and is bombarding the state. The GOP and their allies have responded to bail out Cruz. Allred’s chances come down to how close Harris can make the state.

        I look at the DC Circuit Biden judges as a 3-for-3. Garcia vs. Tatel, pretty much even trade. Same with Pan vs. Garland. But then you have Childs vs. Rogers, and that’s a shift right.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Oh yea, if you are not counting KBJ then yes, I would agree the DC Circuit has moved to the right. I am counting all Biden circuit court judges, regardless of if they are still on the court or not.

        Tonight is the only debate between Allred & Cruz. I may watch it. That race is the new Warnock & Ossoff runoff. It very well will decide the senate. I am not as hopefully about Tester pulling it out as the last poll showed he is down by 7 points, outside the margin of error.

        As we wait for the final batch tomorrow, I still think there are a couple of wild cards left this year. All are unlikely but I will list them below:

        1. Larry Hogan pulls an upset in Maryland.
        2. We get another red state nominee in the final batch.
        3. Osborn wins.
        4. Cruz or Scott loses.
        5. Murkowski changes Party to save the Democrat senate majority.

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      • Jamie's avatar

        Yeah KBJ doesn’t count because she was not on the DC Circuit before Biden and is not there now. If you did count KBJ, the DC Circuit would under Biden would be awful, because you replaced two liberals with two judges who are much more moderate.

        Again I don’t think it is fair at all to put Cruz losing in the same bucket as the rest of your wild cards. Allred has a much better chance than Hogan, Osborn, Powell, or Murkowski switching.

        The polls haven’t done well in the recent past. We’ve had plenty of doomers here and elsewhere making bad predictions based on these bad polls and the aggregates and models that rely on them. I don’t count out Tester yet and Allred’s chances are much higher than most people give it. The Tester polls remind me of the Susan Collins polls in 2020.
        But if the Democrats hold the Senate, it’s quite likely that Colin Allred will be part of that majority.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Ryan J's avatar

        Sheehy and Cruz each have about an 80% chance of winning, so if the results of Texas and Montana are independent of each other, the chances of the GOP taking the senate stand at about 64% (realistically, they aren’t independent of each other, and even if Tester or Allred wins, we won’t get the Senate unless Harris wins as well as Brown and all swing state Dems).

        A GOP internal poll showed the following:

        ARIZONA: Gallego +5, Tie for President
        MARYLAND: Alsobrooks +7, Harris +29
        MICHIGAN: Slotkin +8, Harris +3
        MONTANA: Sheehy +4, Trump +17
        NEVADA: Rosen +7, Tie for President
        OHIO: Brown +6, Trump +4
        PENNSYLVANIA: Casey +2, Harris +1
        TEXAS: Cruz +1, Trump +5
        WISCONSIN: Baldwin +1, Trump +1

        Assuming anything <5 is up for grabs, Dems have 47 Senate seats, GOP has 49, and 4 are tossups. Assuming Georgia and North Carolina are tossups (not listed as no senate seat up), that gives Harris 226 electoral votes and Trump 219 (yes, I know exactly how many electoral votes each swing state combination gives, but I won't go into depth because this blog is about the judiciary)

        I find it interesting that Dems are performing so much better for Senate than for president. This makes sense in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, & Nevada (states with Dem incumbents), but I am surprised that Gallego & Slotkin are outperforming Harris by so much. The best explanation I've heard for Gallego's lead is Latino men (and sexism — Trump and Gallego are both men and their opponents are both women). I don't have a good explanation for Michigan, as I assume the Gaza voters who refuse to vote for Harris won't vote for Slotkin either.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Jamie's avatar

        I’m not sure where you get your percentages from. I’d put them more at 60%. But if they are coming from polls, poll aggregates, or models that use these polls, well its garbage in garbage out. The last several election suggest that pollsters don’t really know how to get a representative sample of the voters. And no internal polling isn’t much better (it was wrong for both parties in 2016, 2020, and 2022).

        But still that GOP internals have Cruz up just 1 should tell you that this race is quite competitive. And I don’t think Sheehy, Brown, or Slotkin are safe either. All four of these races are competitive. OTOH, Casey and Baldwin as incumbents are in better shape than these polls suggest.

        Election results in states are never independent IMO and are always dependent on national trends. There’s a reason why Senate races generally all move in the same direction on election day.

        As to why there a difference between President and Senate, my guess is candidate quality, which matters more for races that are downballot. Cruz for example, is a very disliked incumbent. So he’ll do worse than the Presidential ticket. But that’s why I’m most dubious about this set of polls for Baldwin, Casey, or Slotkin. It underestimates the strength or the former two and overestimates the latter.

        Doomers in 2022 used these bad polls to predict a massive red wave. It was so bad that the entire Democratic Party apparatus expected a massive red wave and behaved accordingly. They assumed that candidate internal polling that suggested otherwise was wrong. Many close races didn’t get the money it needed. If the Democrats had a skeptical attitude toward the Big Red Wave, they would have held the House.
        I recall quite a few people who though Senate races in Colorado and Washington were competitive.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Jamie's avatar

        Ok. So both of them are dependent on the polls being accurate and representative of the electorate. I’m just completely unconvinced of that given the last few years, especially with the very low response rates these polls are getting. At the very least, the uncertainty in these poll results should be increased substantially. We should NOT be treating these polls as ground truth. Much of the analysis that I read basically goes, here’s a poll, assume it is true, and then try to explain the results in the poll. We should be a lot more skeptical than that.

        And that’s for the polls that are legitimate. Another part of the problem in 2022 was that some of these less reputable GOP pollsters (Rasmussen, Trafalgar, etc) flooded the zone with some really extreme polls which skewed the averages and models. Polls showing Patty Murray close in Washington state and every single GOP Senate candidate having a decent lead.

        BTW, as far as why Gallego is doing so much better… have you seen his opponent? She’s a complete nutcase.

        Liked by 3 people

      • Jamie's avatar

        I’ll also say one more thing. While my suspicion is that the polls, aggregates, and models are tilted too far to the GOP like 2022, it’s very possible that they could also be tilted toward the Democrats like in 2020 or 2016. If that’s true, the election could get quite ugly.
        Or they could be tilted in different directions in the states. We kind of saw that in 2022 with most of the country rejecting the red wave, but states like New York and Florida very much having a red wave.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Ryan J's avatar

        Another question: if Allred wins but Trump also wins, Allred has a VERY powerful blue slip, if not the most powerful blue slip. Texas is the clear leader in generating FedSoc hacks on the courts, and I guarantee that Cornyn and Cruz have a list of FedSoc hacks ready to fill the 7 Texas vacancies if Trump and Cruz both win.

        If Allred is Dems’ 51st seat, he can basically deal with Trump judicial nominees however he wants. But if the GOP manages to take the Senate, there is a decent chance that the GOP kills blue slips, and I see one of two things happening:

        1) The GOP indeed kills blue slips
        2) Allred plays his cards masterfully enough, allowing some of the less bad FedSoc members to get through, while ensuring that no more judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk are confirmed, especially in single-judge divisions

        Allred would not be able to block a potential Kacsmaryk elevation to the 5th Cir., but if he has blue slip power over district courts, that might prevent a Kacsmaryk elevation (They need Kacsmaryk where he is right now, and they will only consider elevating him if they can find an equally bad replacement to sit in Amarillo)

        Liked by 1 person

      • Jamie's avatar

        I don’t see a scenario where Allred and Trump win. It’s not impossible, but it would require Allred to overperform Harris by a larger margin than realistically feasible. If Harris is barely winning, my guess is that she loses Texas by around what Biden did. She’ll have to do at least slightly better than that to give Allred a chance.

        Liked by 3 people

      • Dequan's avatar

        Repeat after me…

        Republicans will kill blue slips for district court vacancies just like they did for circuit court vacancies.

        Donald Trump is talking about using the US military on US citizens that disagree with him. I’m not sure why so many people on this blog think nuking blue slips for district court seats is such a stretch… Lol

        Liked by 2 people

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