Sharad Desai – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona

The brother of Ninth Circuit Judge Roopali Desai, Phoenix based attorney Sharad Desai is vying to become the first Indian American judge on the federal district court bench in Arizona.

Background

Born to an Indian immigrant family in Phoenix, Desai received a joint B.S. and B.A. from the University of Arizona in 2003 and then a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2006. Desai then returned to Arizona to clerk for Arizona Supreme Court Justice Rebecca White Berch.

After his clerkship, Desai joined Osborn Maledon, P.A. in Phoenix. He became a Member with the firm in 2012. In 2015, he shifted to Honeywell International Inc., a business conglomerate working in aerospace and technology, among other areas, where he serves as Vice President and General Counsel.

History of the Seat

Desai has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, to a seat to be vacated on October 21, 2024, when Judge G. Murray Snow takes senior status.

Legal Experience

After his clerkship, Desai worked in litigation at Osborn Maledon, P.A. While at the firm, Desai represented a class of retired Arizona judges in a class action suit against a change in the calculations of pension benefit increases for judges. See Fields v. Elected Officials’ Retirement Plan, 320 P.3d 1160 (Ariz. 2014). Desai secured a victory for the class in trial court, which was affirmed by the Arizona Supreme Court. See id.

While at the firm, Desai was appointed by the Arizona District Court to represent a class of pretrial detainees in litigation by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office seeking to terminate consent agreements overseeing conditions in their jails. See Graves v. Arpaio, 48 F. Supp. 3d 1318 (D. Ariz. 2014). Desai maintained his representation of the class until he left the firm in 2015.

On the pro bono side, Desai represented a Nevada prisoner seeking recovery for costs from litigation challenging a disciplinary hearing against him. As part of his representation, Desai briefed and argued the appeal before the Ninth Circuit. See Jones v. McDaniel, 607 F. App’x 710 (9th Cir. 2015).

For the last nine years at Honeywell International Inc., Desai has served as a Counsel, advising various divisions of the company, and overseeing litigation in general. However, he has not appeared in court during this time. Nonetheless, Desai has supervised litigation, including in a $38 million product liability suit involving a Honeywell autopilot on an aircraft, which ended in a jury verdict in Honeywell’s favor after a two week trial. See Egbers v. Honeywell, Int’l, Cook County Circuit Ct. Case No. 06 L 6992 (Ill. 2016).

Overall Assessment

Perhaps more than any other Senator, Senator Kirsten Synema has been able to grease the wheels for nominees from her state. The three nominees to Arizona courts from the Biden Administration have each drawn more than 60 senators in support, a remarkable feat, given that only around 20% of the Administration’s judicial nominees have drawn that level of support.

While Desai is unlikely to get the same level of support, given the fact that his nomination will almost certainly be considered in the lame duck session, it is possible that Sinema will be able to work her magic a fourth time and ensure that Desai joins the bench in due course.

1,386 Comments

    • Mike's avatar

      On the one hand, I’m glad Chuck is going ahead and staying until all his cloture votes go through.

      On the other, unless this is a one time show, if the GOP does this again tomorrow I’d hope he grows enough of a spine to announce announces that the senate will be in session on Fridays moving forward.

      I mean if we’re being honest, unless he runs for another term at 78 this is probably the last few months he’ll be senate majority leader in his life.

      Liked by 2 people

      • tsb1991's avatar

        Hwang is up next for a cloture filing. If we do go through this tomorrow it would likely be for one nominee, an appeals court nominee, unless that’s filed on today.

        It’ll be interesting who the frontrunners are for the Democratic leaders after Schumer and Durbin. Maybe Schatz/Klobuchar? We just had our generational turnover in the House, so the bill is coming due on the Senate side.

        Liked by 2 people

  4. Mike's avatar

    Also, I don’t recall the last time I saw them submit more than 3 nominees for cloture votes.

    Maybe they’re gonna try my recommendation of holding only cloture votes on one day to get as many candidates lined up as possible for an all night confirmation voting session on a Thursday.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      @Mike

      You definitely might be right. I don’t remember this many cloture motions sent out on judges on a Monday night before with the exception of December 2021 & that was with unanimous consent. I can’t believe Schumer & Durbin may finally be growing a spine… I mean it took 3 & a half years & losing an election, but I guess better late than never. Republicans must have gotten wind of how many cloture motions Schumer was going to send out & went bat sh*t crazy.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. raylodato's avatar

    I think my priorities on the remaining CCA nominees are

    Lipez (never miss a chance to totally shut out Republicans from a court)

    Park (possible SCOTUS nominee, definitely needed on the 4th, which will probably see some R turnover in the next 4 years)

    Mangi (even w/o the Delaware nominee, which I still can’t comprehend, the chance to strengthen the D side of the bench is important)

    Campbell (no offense, just doesn’t give Ds a majority or strengthen it on the 6th)

    Anybody with another list?

    Liked by 3 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      If we are doing wish list, here is mine;

      Confirm all pending nominees on the floor.

      Give a hearing for every nominee (Including Kanter) that has blue slips turned in & confirm them.

      Discharge Sarah Netburn & confirm her.

      Kent Jordan & every judge that is still on the bench who has announced senior status but will not have a Biden judge to replace them to rescind their senior status.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Zack's avatar

    Talked to someone in DE legal circles about the failure to nominate someone for Kent Jordan’s seat and it basically came down to (from what he’s heard) that Jordan was more then willing to postpone his retirement if Biden tried to nominate anyone to the seat.
    As he put it (and he’s not wrong IMO) if Jordan wanted Biden to replace him, he would have announced his senior status much earlier and not timed his retirement the way he did.
    I still would have liked to see someone nominated for this seat but in the end, I think it would have been a wasted effort and it seems like the Biden WH knew that as well.
    Darn shame, would have loved to have flipped this seat.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      The record under Biden is 9 judges voted on the night of December 17, 2021. If Schumer were to set up all of the remaining district court judges pending on the floor that hadn’t had cloture filed before today, that would equal 9. I would hope he would throw in a circuit court nominee at the end for an even 10.

      Liked by 2 people

      • Dequan's avatar

        With Thanksgiving recess coming up after next week, ine as well go all in & just take Sunday o ff at this point. It doens’t look lik eRubio or Vance will be back before the holiday recess. I wouldn’t risk them not resigning so Dewine & DeSantis can replace them after Thanksgiving so this might be the best chance to get Mangi, Campbell & Park confirmed.

        I would save Lipez & Desai for the end. No need on takin gup time on them now. I really hope Schumer discharges Sarah Netburn before Thanksgiving.

        As for the earlier comment about the conversation with the Delaware attorney, sucks fi that’s the reason we didn’t get a nominee for the 3rd. I still would have nominated somebody like Christopher Howland & force Jordan to rescind or change his retirement date.

        Liked by 2 people

  8. Joe's avatar

    How great would it be if they actually knocked all 12 out this week?

    Would only leave the 4 appellate nominees and then the 9 district nominees still working their way through the SJC process. With three weeks to go I like the odds of getting them all across the line.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Zack's avatar

    @Dequan,
    I would have liked to see Christopher Howland nominated as well but in the same breath, we’ve seen people like Danna Jackson and Detra Shaw-Wilder among others be nominated and left to twist in the wind.
    Why put Howland or anyone else through that knowing Kent would more likely then not call the bluff?
    In better news, it does appear Allison Riggs will keep her North Carolina Supreme Court seat by the skin of her teeth, as there are only a couple of counties left and they are blue leaning.
    When all is said and done though, she will have won by less then 1,000 votes.
    A reminder every vote matters.

    Liked by 3 people

  12. raylodato's avatar

    Hate to sound like the crazy old man yelling at the clouds, but the constant ping-ponging between legislative and executive sessions, and requiring votes each time, are the kind of thing the average person hates about government (although they’re not likely to be paying attention to this in particular).

    I can see some case for one vote to take them from legislative to executive session at the beginning of the filing of cloture motions, but to do it each time, twice…seems excessive.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Unfortunately executive session & legislative session are two seperate things. Think about it like basketball. You have defense & offense. You have the same players on the court for both but when your team is on offense, you are aiming for one basket & when you are on defense, you are defending the ball to go into the other basket.

      Trust me it sucks but it’s two different things. It usually doesn’t matter since there’s almost always unanimous consent to go back & fourth, but we all know in the senate, it only takes one senator to prevent UA. I just hope Democrats remember this over the next four years.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. IrvineOnlooker's avatar

    Dems would employ this for lame duck sessions, Senate GOP has never tried this for the first 3.8 years of Biden’s term, I would not expect Dems to immediately return the favor. I fear if they do, it would accelerate the GOP’s acquiescence to recess appointments by Trump

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Still a great night. If they can clear all 9 district court nominees pending by the end of the week, Schumer could still send a cloture motion for any of the circuit court nominees tomorrow to set up a cloture vote on Thursday. That would just leave 8 district court nominees (Not counting Kanter & Netburn), the remaining circuit court nominees & the 10 local DC judges with three weeks left in session.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Joe's avatar

      I’m not going to complain too much. It’s nice to get this big backlog done and processed before Thanksgiving. Four appellate nominees will eat up a large amount of time though, and I expect Republicans to drag those votes out as long as possible too. It may take a full week to knock those out.

      Last night was tremendous though. To think that we’ll be at 228 confirmed judges by Thanksgiving (assuming all of them have to votes).

      Liked by 2 people

  15. Gavi's avatar

    Just read Zack’s comment on the Jordan vacancy in Delaware and I have to advise folks against putting too much stock into a hearsay of a hearsay found on a blog. Zack is a Dem team player through and through. He’ll always want to soften the blow. Well, despite Zack’s cushioning, my own opinion is the WH’s failure to nominate someone for this vacancy is nothing short of political and constitutional malpractice.

    Biden’s blue slip support helped put Jordan on the court in the first place, something Jordan reminded the president of in his retirement announcement letter:  “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve our country and for the kind support you gave me and my family when I was nominated to serve. You have my very sincere thanks.”

    This letter, please be reminded, was sent to Biden, not in December 2024, or November 2024, or September 2024. Jordan announced his retirement on May 7th! This is more than enough time to give a competent WH and senate majority more than enough time to nominate, confirm, and appoint a successor in time for January 15, 2025.

    This is not an argument about Jordan’s virtue or his lifelong dream to see Dems fill every judicial vacancy throughout the land. This is just simplifying things: it’s odd for Jordan to give so much notice of his intensions if he didn’t want his seat to be filled by this WH.

    I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to see why Dems don’t deserve to be out of power. And no, Zack, you’re not the only oppressed minority who has a lot to lose under Trump. But unlike you, that doesn’t make me into an apologist. In fact, that’s all the more reason to fill every vacancy to help (obviously not guarantee) mitigate the oppression.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Zack's avatar

      I’ve only got a month left on this site so I’m not going to spend it arguing with people.
      All I’m going to say to your post where you pat yourself on the back about how smart you are while I’m dumb is how nice Kent said those things in a letter.
      His actions by timing his retirement after the 2024 elections speak louder then words do.
      If he had wanted Biden to pick his replacement with no hassle, that date would have been not left up to doubt.
      Have a good day.

      Liked by 2 people

  16. Joe's avatar

    It is odd that the Biden WH didn’t at least try. Nominate a centrist, 55 year old prosecutor if you want to play it safe, but at least call his bluff. Frankly, they should have made a nominee in late summer and held a SJC hearing prior to the election. If Jordan rescinds then so be it, but at least they could have said they tried.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Mike's avatar

    Thursdays going to be a good night but not gonna lie, breaks my heart seeing all those red state vacancies a Harris admin could’ve filled.

    Still can’t believe Ted freaking Cruz managed such a good package deal for a 60 year old circuit judge.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Dequan's avatar

    Looks like a perfect time to tee up Mangi & Park to me…

    11:30 a.m. Leader Schumer asked for a Motion to Instruct the Sergeant at Arms to Request the Presence of Absent Senators.

    12:03 p.m. By a vote of 41-26, the Senate agreed to the motion to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request the presence of absent Senators.

    • 33 Senators that did not vote: Barrasso, Blackburn, Booker, Braun, Britt, Butler, Capito, Cassidy, Cotton, Cramer, Cruz, Fetterman, Fischer, Gillibrand, Hagerty, Hirono, Kennedy, Lummis, Moran, Mullin, Murkowski, Paul, Rubio, Scott (FL), Scott (SC), Smith, Stabenow, Sullivan, Tester, Tuberville, Vance, Warner, and Warnock.

    Like

  21. tsb1991's avatar

    Just a FYI on discharging Netburn, I don’t think that’s possible in this Congress with a simple majority. I believe it’s typically 60 votes to discharge something out of committee (or unanimous consent), needing a majority I believe was a special rule in the last Congress when the Senate was 50-50 and every Senate committee was evenly divided, where you could naturally produce a tie on a party-line vote.

    Also, having the Sergeant-at-Arms go hunt down absent Republican Senators? Did the ghost of Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd visit Schumer in his sleep (I think something similar happened in the late 80s when Byrd was Majority Leader)?

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Zack's avatar

    Yea..based on what I’m seeing with Masto Mangi’s nomination is still in trouble.
    Sad to say but Democrats blew it with him.
    If the votes weren’t there, they weren’t there and they should have moved on to another nominee instead of worrying that it would anger one group of voters.
    I fear all it did was allow Republicans another seat to fill they never should have had a chance too.

    Liked by 3 people

  23. tsb1991's avatar

    Hawley (CDIL) received his commission on the 15th, so we’re down to Perry for pending commissions. As far as Kidd is concerned, that seat technically won’t open up until around the end of the year based on Wilson’s statement?

    Also hoping we get cloture on an appeals court nominee today, that way you can tack it onto the end of all of the district judges (I’d imagine the Senate is working all night Wednesday into Thursday so they can vanish out of town at Thursday afternoon)?

    Liked by 1 person

  24. tsb1991's avatar

    While the Rubio/Vance absences were expected today, I guess there’s a few more Republican Senators absent because they’re with Trump at some SpaceX launch with Elon, while at the same time Trump is flipping out telling Republicans to not allow any of Biden’s nominees to be confirmed before he takes office. The Georgia runoffs from 2021 and the midterms loom large over this lame duck as to why this is possible, otherwise Trump would have been taking office with another large pile of vacancies like he did in 2017.

    Also, I would hope a billionaire as President letting another billionaire (Elon) stick around and call all the shots wouldn’t fly well with voters, as it’s out in the open…

    We’re currently at 49 yes votes for Kasbubhai and Manchin/Sinema haven’t voted lol. When Russell comes up for cloture it sounds like Republicans didn’t even consent to waiving the quorum calls so they have to do that additional step before holding any votes.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Gavi's avatar

      Yes, see article below. Even Daines felt compelled to respond, blaming flight delays for his absence. We should expect a more concerted effort by Republicans to not only drag out votes, but to actually be present for them. There’s no downside for them, only upsides. Chances are very high that if the Republicans stick to this strategy, they’ll be successful in sinking a nominee or 2.

      This shows how the Republicans view the judiciary. Most Dem governors probably don’t even know who the judiciary noms in their states are, and I’m only being half facetious.

      It was probably a strategic mistake for Schumer not to have set up the votes for Mangi or Campbell or Park for final confirmation last night, instead of Kidd, who has broader support within his caucus, knowing that Monday evening’s return to DC always comes with absences. With 49 Dems being in town last night, based on my rough count, that would have probably meant a 47-47 tie for at least one (Mangi), if the NV sens and Manchin followed through and voted against him. Sinema’s vote would have been the unknown. VP Kamala Harris will now have a lot of free time on her hands after Jan 25, 2025. Schumer should remind her that her party will be shut out of the confirmation game for the foreseeable future and that she should do her part by being on hand to cast tiebreakers while they still can. The problem is much worse if Schumer has always known that Mangi was never going to be confirmed.

      https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-blasts-senate-republicans-after-vance-rubio-miss-vote-1988315

      Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        @Gavi (Or anybody)

        Could you explain the quorum rules to me? I saw this morning Schumer had to call a vote to have the Sergeant at arms round up the Republicans to come to the floor. Isn’t a quorum a simple majority?

        If all 51 Democrats & Independents show up, is there a need to have the Sergeant at arms round up the Republicans? And I assume at least one Republican would have to be present because if not, if all 51 Democrats & Independents show up, couldn’t they just voice vote any nominee they want without any objections? What am I missing here???

        Like

      • Gavi's avatar

        @Dequan, I haven’t seen the instance in which Schumer made this motion today, so I will be talking in broad terms.

        A quorum is indeed a bare majority. But how do you know that there is a quorum? You need to make the call to establish that a quorum is indeed present. This is often waived by a UC. If, however, a senator (probably an opposing one) objects to the UC request to vitiate the quorum call, you cannot establish that a quorum exists, which means you cannot do anything, since a quorum is necessary to conduct business. Do you see the catch-22? So, if you’re in the majority and you want action on a measure and you have to deal with not having a quorum and/or not allowed to suspend this by a UC, you have to mandate the attendance of senators by instructing the Sergeant at arms to round them up to establish a quorum. Sorry if this isn’t more specific.
        If this doesn’t answer your question, maybe describe for me what took place or send me the clip. Thanks.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Ah ok. No you answered my question. So if there are 51 Democrats present, any one Republican can say they don’t believe there are (Even if he is not being truthful) & force a quorum call since that is usually waived by unanimous consent (As you always say anything in the senate can be fast tracked with UC). And instructing the Sergeant at arms to round senators up is more of a procedural mandate, more than it is Schumer actually telling him to grab Republicans by the boot strap kicking & screaming to the senate floor.

        Ok I understand now.  I just wanted to make sure 51 was a quorum. So for instance, if Schumer says the senate was going to work until both Mangi & Park are confirmed, even if that meant working on Thanksgiving Day (Sorry, I should have warned you before I wrote that. You might have been driving & I don’t’ want you to crash… Lol), as long as all 51 Democrats agree & show up, then the votes can occur.

        Like

  28. tsb1991's avatar

    Manchin a no and Sinema a yes on Russell, so there are 50 votes on Russell. Probably the biggest surprise for me this Congress, I thought Russell was on the Mangi tier of nominees who were completely toast. Along with Kasubhai, that’s two nominees getting confirmed today who got a Ted Cruz blowup at their hearing? Makes it even sweeter for me lol

    Liked by 1 person

  29. tsb1991's avatar

    Cloture invoked on Russell 50-45. Barring any time agreement the 2 hours of postcloture will expire at around 6:15PM, so that’s when we should expect the confirmation vote, and then cloture on Pennell afterwards.

    If we still have this attendance disparity by the end of the week (which we may since I doubt Republicans would want to hang around Thursday afternoon/night), I’d hope Schumer files cloture on Park or even Mangi tonight so you can end the voting week with cloture on an appeals court judge. If Republicans wanted to force votes on the switching to legislative/executive session it’d only be for one nominee so you wouldn’t be bumping up against midnight like last night which was a risk.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Mike's avatar

      I’m wondering how that cloture would work.

      If Schumer files cloture today for a circuit nominee but voting tomorrow goes into the next day, would that allow a cloture vote to happen at say 2 am on Thursday so they can call it a week?

      Or would a session that started on Weds but went into Thursday still count as Wednesday session and not meet the 2 day time lapse needed to permit a vote?

      I have a hard time believing they’re gonna work on Thursday if they confirm 9 judges on Wednesday, I hope they do and doubt it.

      I mean, can you imagine how many regulators they could confirm if they dared the GOP to stay for another 16 hour day on Thursday instead of going home to start their MAGA thanksgiving early.

      Liked by 1 person

  30. Zack's avatar

    It appears several Republican senators are out today so even though Vance is in the building, others aren’t.
    Won’t get Mangi or Park through but I can see why we’re doing some of the tougher district court nominees right now.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Gavi's avatar

    @Dequan, sorry I can’t reply to your common so I’ll reply here:

    ”So if there are 51 Democrats present, any one Republican can say they don’t believe there are (Even if he is not being truthful) & force a quorum call since that is usually waived by unanimous consent” 

    Yes, because quorum calls take time. It’s a hundred names you have to roll off. And not everyone votes when their name is called, so definitely time-consuming.

    “And instructing the Sergeant at arms to round senators up is more of a procedural mandate”

    It’s not an empty procedural motion. The Sergeant at Arms will have to go seek senators out to inform them that their presence is required on the floor. There are degrees to this motion. Schumer can make a motion for the SaA to direct senators to the floor. He could also direct that senators be arrested until they are ready to appear on the floor, or compel their attendance by “any means necessary,” I believe the official phrase is.

    Haha @ working on Thanksgiving. All 51 Dems *don’t* need to show up. Just as long as no Republicans show up to “suggest the absence of a quorum.” That’s how they are able to conduct pro forma sessions with a single senator. No one else is there to say that there isn’t a quorum. So as long as an un-objected UC establishes a quorum, there is a quorum, even with just 1 senator.

    Going back to this question: “if all 51 Democrats & Independents show up, couldn’t they just voice vote any nominee they want without any objections?”

    Remember the majority doesn’t just spring votes on senators like that. They have to give notice, especially on terminal votes. But this is just a norm. Let’s see how much longer it’ll be around for.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      @Gavi

      Thanks. That definitely explains it a lot. I do wonder if we will ever see a Sargent at Arms actually arrest a sitting United States senator who refuses to be present on the senate floor. As to your last sentence, I wouldn’t put money on that “Norm” or any other “Norm” being off the table the next four years. If it’s not an actual rule written down, all bets are off.

      And definitely sorry for the Thanksgiving Day workday. I will do better & warn you ahead of time in the future… Haaaaa

      Liked by 2 people

  32. tsb1991's avatar

    Russell confirmed. I thought she’d be the hardest remaining district nominee to confirm from here on out but that honor may go to Brindisi. Cloture vote on Pennell underway. As of now Sinema a yes while Manchin hasn’t voted yet (since they had to pull cloture on her back in September he’s probably a no, then again I said the same about Manchin and Kasubhai over the summer). Looks like she’ll be confirmed tomorrow morning as I see that “last vote today” notice on that Republican secretary desk up front. This also means that either cloture won’t be filed on an appeals court nominee afterwards OR that Republicans won’t force any votes on the cloture being filed after the Pennell vote, so we’ll see.

    Buckle up for tomorrow, after Pennell is confirmed we’ll get both DC District nominees to kick things off.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      Yea, not even remotely credible. And if the magistrate judge with a Democrat background recommendation was David Kessler, he was born in 1962 so that’s just as much of a joke. @Ethan suggested the other two recommendations might have been Erik Zimmerman & David Bragdon. So that’s 0 for 4 if so.

      Like

    • tsb1991's avatar

      The Ali cloture vote was also scheduled, but they’ll be voting on some Sanders resolutions about weapons to Israel, which was hinted at today. Is this really what we need to devote what precious little time is left especially when we’re supposed to be on a judge blitz this week? Still unsure if we’ll be around late Wednesday or if we go Thursday night into Friday, if it’s the latter you could conceivably file cloture on someone Wednesday and vote on it Friday.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Mike's avatar

        That’s possible if the plan is to confirm all those judges through Friday but it could also be that they don’t want to expose a nominee for 10 days but that should only be a problem if they don’t think would get any bipartisan support.

        Do they think all the nominees moving forward will be party line votes?

        Liked by 1 person

  38. Zack's avatar

    I expect all of the nominees going forward to be party line votes, why I expect Schumer didn’t file cloture on a couple of nominees because Kamala Harris is in Hawaii right now and unavailable to break ties.
    Have to wait and see for tomorrow, Pennell and Ali will be up for votes.
    Have to wait and see how many Republicans will be there tomorrow.

    Liked by 1 person

  39. Gavi's avatar

    Watch this incredible exchange between Prof. Vladeck and Edith Jones. Side note, this is an example of a “liberal” voice being present on a FedSoc panel. I don’t know why they allow themselves to be used as token like this. Check the whole thing out if you have the time. If not, skip to around the 1 hour mark for the Vladeck/Jones back and forth.

    Anyway, Vladeck held his own against this extremely bad faith line of argument by Jones. Let’s see how quickly she’ll go senior this time around under Trump.

    Aagren’s the one among us who usually shares these outside-the-courtroom events with us. I am going to miss many of them when I stop coming on here during Trump’s reign.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      I had to hold myself from vomiting after listening to Judge James Ho for more than 3 minuets. He is blanketly partisan.

      I love the talk about the single judge divisions & using Waco, TX patent cases as an example. I absolutely love the back & fourth between Professor Vladeck and Edith Jones. I can’t believe she took 5 minutes of the panel to read off his past comments during a panel discussion. It makes me sick that Trump will get to replace her. I love how judge Jones said the judge shopping issue will end in January & the professor reminded her that Democrats can play the same game, finding courts in blue states that will favor them.

      Liked by 2 people

  40. Mitch's avatar

    With regard to the judicial conflict, it’s a shame that Detra Shaw-Wilder won’t be joining the district court in Florida. She would have been well-suited to hear cases on financial crimes. She got caught in the middle of something that had nothing to do with her as a nominee.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      I said from the beginning all deals should have been made before Biden nominated Rubio’s backer’s nephew. She should have been a part of a 5 judge deal. Even a 6 judge deal with a second Republican pick. But once he was nominated & confirmed, all leveraged was lost.

      Like

      • lilee2122's avatar

        I’ll be content for this week if we can turn out at least 5 more confirmations the way it’s going this week ….Schumer should file cloture on those circuit court nominees have them ready for the 3 week stretch in Dec.. Also for the DC superior court judges maybe devote a few days to just them in Dec…

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joe's avatar

        Lilee, I believe the plan is for a late night tonight in the senate and lots of confirmation votes. My guess is they prefer to do it that way and have a normal Thursday versus staying late Thursday night. As always, betting on senators wanting to leave town is usually smart. We will see though. I just hope the vote advantage continues to favor Democrats.

        Liked by 1 person

  42. Zack's avatar

    @Dequan,
    I honestly don’t care about some district court seats as much as I do Circuit ones.
    The remaining Clinton judges left on Circuit courts are all in their 70’s or 80’s and unlike some of the ones we saw take senior status in Trump’s first term (Richard Talman/Frank Hull) they are all moderates/liberals so we’re sadly going to see genuine flips this time with Ronald Gould/Robert King leading that list just because of their ages/health issues.
    I also don’t trust some of the Obama judges on the 10th Circuit that were part of package deals to stay put either but we’ll have to wait and see.
    As for Edith Jones, she has long been one of the most unqualified hacks to ever serve on the courts and can still give any of the Trump judges a run for their money.
    I don’t see her or a couple of other Reagan/George Sr judges like Frank Easterbrook taking senior status unlike their health forces them to, they enjoy the power too much.
    Ones like Karen Henderson on the D.C. Circuit though are as good as gone.
    Sad reality too is that even if Harris had won, if Republicans controlled the Senate any Circuit court vacancies would have been left unfilled, Republicans in both the Obama AND Clinton years showed they had no issues with keeping seats open for years if need be until they had a chance to fill it.
    She would have had the lowest number of confirmations for a president in their first two years in office ever.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Dequan's avatar

    The SJC hearing lasted a half hour. Durbin mentioned Murillo had never been over turned & have Cheeks the chance to head off Republican questions about written articles from him about the George Floyd killing.

    Kennedy had to be corrected three times about a comment Cheeks told Durbin when he said “He tries not to take positions”. Kennedy said three times he said “He doesn’t take positions”, leaving out the “tries not to” part.

    Kennedy read three articles Cheeks wrote. The first two didn’t seem to be particularly bad. The third was Cheeks saying Illegal immigrants deserve a pass from prosecution.

    Kennedy was the only Republican that showed up. That made Kennedy the ranking member & he said “Being the acting ranking member is better than sex, well not really”… Lol

    At the end, Durbin stressed for the nominees to hurry up & answer any written questions if they want to be confirmed before the end of the year.

    Liked by 2 people

  45. tsb1991's avatar

    Pennell vote underway, and the Ali cloture vote will follow that. Ali’s confirmation vote is set for 3PM. Attendance should be more interesting today, wonder if any of the Republicans who were out with Trump and Elon will be back today (Cramer and Cruz were out with him at a minimum if I remember). Manchin also didn’t vote last night when the Pennell cloture was up but I’d still lean towards him voting no.

    If we’re looking for positive things, after Ali and Sooknanan are confirmed the DDC will be fully staffed, and it looks unlikely Trump will have any additional picks to this court. Just doing the math in the back of my head most of the Obama appointees wouldn’t be eligible for senior status until either the very end or after Trump’s term, you might see some decent turnover here if Democrats have the Senate and presidency after 2028.

    Liked by 2 people

  48. Dequan's avatar

    I hope today turns into the long night we have hoped for. I am particularly excited to see a nominee confirmed today that somebody on this blog is personally close to.

    For those of you that may be newer to the blog, Amir Ali was the first of the three articles I’ve written on nominees here. The reason I was asked to write it in the first place was because the founder of this blog knows him personally. He didn’t want to have a conflict of interests by writing the post for him & asked would I be interested to write it. Very exciting to see him get confirmed today hopefully.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Dequan's avatar

        Hopefully Senator Braun will be spending the majority of the rest of the year transitioning to Governor. Sucks Republicans are so smart when it comes to the judiciary, with DeSantis & others made the statements they made about Vance & Rubio missing votes. One if not both probably had no intention of returning to the senate had they not applied pressure.

        VP Harris better get plenty of fun in the sun this week. I hope she is in DC for the remainder of the 3 weeks the senate is in session. If she decides to run for Governor of California (Ad I hope she does), no reason to do so until after the senate recesses for the year.

        Like

  50. Joe's avatar

    Lol, I love seeing the raw anger from Republicans over these confirmations. One of the few reasons I haven’t deleted my Twitter account yet is because I always get a good laugh reading the fuming replies to Schumer/Durbin/Senate Judiciary Committee posts.

    Liked by 2 people

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