An End – And a Beginning

So it’s finally here.  After nearly eight years, and more than four hundred nominee profiles, it’s time to close the final chapter on the Vetting Room.  When I first started the Vetting Room eight years ago, I wrote my hopes that this blog would be a way to “inform the general public about candidates for the federal bench.”  I think we’ve succeeded in doing that.  I also hoped that, by providing “disinterested” commentary (in the sense that we’re not advocating for or against individual nominees), the Vetting Room could be a part of de-escalating confirmation tensions and supporting an apolitical judiciary.

Reflecting back, there is much to be proud of.  I never expected that a small legal blog started by a nobody with some assistance from his friends and associates would become one of the most widely searched resources on judicial nominees.  Furthermore, I’ve received messages of praise and support from prominent liberals and conservatives who have praised the tone and content of our write-ups.  Similarly, I’ve fielded angry messages and comments both from folks convinced that we’re secretly suppressing unfavorable information on nominees and from those accusing us of writing hit pieces, in one case, addressing a single article.  Needless to say, we must be doing something right.

I’m also thankful for all the support we’ve gotten, not just from the amazing attorneys who wrote for us, but also from attorneys and law students who helped with research, and from fellow legal bloggers and lawyers who shared, retweeted and commented on our posts.  I would note that Howard Bashman of How Appealing has been particularly generous with sharing our write-ups and with his support.

Given all this, one might wonder why the Vetting Room is shuttering.  Especially with an incoming Administration that is likely to push to reshape the judiciary in a more conservative direction, and likely to be the source of dozens, if not hundreds, of posts.  Well, see, that’s the thing.

Writing and managing a legal blog is not cost-less. Several hours of research, wordsmithing, and analysis go into each post, not just in how to frame each nominee’s background, but also in determining what information should or should not be included. Time spent here is time not spent with my family, or pursuing other passions and interests. Having kept up with the blog through four years of a Republican President and four years of a Democratic President, now seems like the right time to move on.

The Vetting Room is not being taken down, and the posts that are here will stay on (at least for the near future).  As time dictates, additional posts detailing the history of the judiciary (some of my favorite writing but ones I’ve had trouble keeping up with) may be added.

This is not to say that it is time to disengage from judicial nominations entirely. Our founding fathers intended for the confirmation process to include public review and input. In the end, all Americans have an interest in having a Judiciary that decides based on the rule of law, rather than ideology or partisanship. And I expect that vigilance in the process will not cease.

Perhaps, if other interested attorneys come forward who would want to carry the mantle for an apolitical judiciary, the Vetting Room may revive as such. Until then, I thank all the readers this blog has maintained for their support and encouragement, and hope that, in our own way, we’ve had a positive impact on the judicial nomination discourse.

1,517 Comments

  1. 39wimpyclues's avatar

    Just found out there’s a supreme court election as well in Georgia. Two progressive challengers, Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan, against two Republican-appointed justices

    Honestly, with the lack of polling and the fact that Georgia Dems shockingly overpowered in last year’s Public Service Commission elections, this race could also be a sleeper hit for Dems

    Also if anyone’s knowledgeable enough bout the Georgia Supreme Court, what is its ideological balance? Based on Wikipedia, it’s 8 Republican-appointed justices and 1 independent justice but I know the justices won’t always match their appointing governor’s political party.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Mitch's avatar

    Today the SJC had its hearing and as expected, most of the Democrats’ attention was focused on Justin Smith, the nominee for the Eighth Circuit. The Democrats repeatedly brought up the 2020 election outcome, to the point that John Kennedy called them “ridiculous.” Smith promised that he would be independent of political pressure.

    Three nominees for the District Court in Kansas were also questioned, but they came out unscathed. Democrats forcused nearly all their attention on Smith.

    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/trump-lawyer-nominated-for-appeals-court-pledges-independence

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dequan's avatar

      The Kansas nominees seem about as reasonable as you can expect in Trump 2.0. Justin Smith is a perfect example of why elections have consequences. Had Democrats held on in the senate race in Pennsylvania & won the senate races in Wisconsin & North Carolina, Smith wouldn’t even be an afterthought of being confirmed.

      Like

  3. Mitch's avatar

    The U.S. Senate just invoked cloture on the nomination of Andrew Bray of the Western Texas District. A notable aside- Susan Collins voted with the Democrats against this nomination.

    The SJC will be having a vote on some nominees on April 23,

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ryan J's avatar

      Andrew Bray Davis is so bad that AFJ explicitly opposes his nomination. Davis defended Fox News for giving a platform to Trump’s election lies (which, ironically, involved admitting that MAGA is crazy by arguing that “no reasonable person” would believe the election lies).

      The one good thing about Davis’s confirmation is that the court will be fully staffed again, which will be a relief for the 95% of everyday trial court cases that aren’t politically motivated. With Davis’ confirmation, the divisions will look something like this:

      Austin: Pitman, Albright (formerly in Waco), Davis, Nowlin, Ezra
      Del Rio: Moses, Gonzalez
      El Paso: Cardone, Schydlower, Briones, Guaderrama
      Midland/Pecos: Counts
      San Antonio: Biery, Garcia, Rodriguez, Pulliam
      Waco: Wolfe

      The best place in WDTX for liberals to file would be either El Paso or San Antonio, while Midland/Pecos and Waco remain single-judge divisions with a Trump judge. Unclear how bad Counts and Wolfe are but Albright & Pulliam are actually not as bad as you would expect for a Trump judge in Texas (the worst ones seem to be located in the Northern & Eastern districts).

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Ryan J's avatar

    In other news, the abortion pill is back in the news. Judge David Joseph (W.D. Louisiana) is hearing a challenge to the 2023 FDA policy allowing the mailing of abortion pills. Joseph declined to block the 2023 policy for now, but hinted that he might in the future. He gave the Trump administration 6 months (starting April 7th, 2026) to detail the FDA’s next steps. It’s pretty clear that the Trump administration is trying to wait until after the midterms to deal with this issue, and I think that judges like David Joseph understand that.

    I dug into how cases are assigned there and found that the case could have been assigned to 4 judges (all Republican-appointed). David Joseph is no Kacsmaryk but he still is willing to put pressure on the Trump administration to ban the abortion pill, after the midterms if not now.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Zack Jones's avatar

    @Dequan

    Susan Collins has done this routine of pretending to be horrified by some nominees so she won’t vote for them going back to the W years with nominees like Bill Pryor.

    In every case though, the nominees had the votes to get confirmed.

    If a bad nominee needs the vote, she’ll provide it without fail but people think she’s a moderate anyway.

    Makes me sick.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. 39wimpyclues's avatar

    According to current reports Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are NOT retiring any time soon. And I’m not alone in hoping this ends up backfiring like RBG refusing to retire back in 2013

    May this motivates Democrats to get that desired 51-seat or even 52 seat majority this coming midterms lest far-right hacks like Matthew Kacsmaryk and Kathryn Kimball Mizelle end up replacing them

    Liked by 5 people

  8. Mitch's avatar

    I found an article from the site ‘Balls & Strikes” written by progressive law professor JP Collins. An interesting aside on it, Collins, who’s also a supporter of Federal Court reform, states that he personally knows Matthew Schwartz, Trump’s nominee for the Second Circuit. They worked together at Sullivan and Cromwell for five years and worked together on several cases. Collins describes Schwartz as a smart and honorable man and says they got along together really well.

    In 2006, David Lat wrote an article for ‘Above the Law,” that mentions Schwartz and speaks well of him, calling him “a very decent guy who won’t push his politics on you.”

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Mitch's avatar

    Is anybody in the mood for comedy? Congressman Rich McCormick and others have sponsored a bill to place Alexandria and Arlington County in the District of Columbia. They say it’s about an obscure law from 1846. Of course, the redistricting vote on April 21 has nothing to do with it.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene must be kicking herself for not having thought of this.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Mitch's avatar

    Tomorrow the SJC is holding a hearing for four nominees,

    Michael Hendershot: Sixth Circuit

    Jeffrey Kuntz: Middle Florida

    Rob Jones: Southern Texas

    John Marck: Southern Texas

    You can bet that J.D. Vance recommended Hendershot, they’ve known each other for decades. He may get questions about state voter ID laws.

    Kurtz will likely be questioned about a defamation case he heard on the state court which involved Donald Trump.

    I don’t think the Texas nominees will face much trouble.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. 39wimpyclues's avatar

    With the recent news of Callais and its gutting of the VRA, I’ve been looking at states where Dems could gain trifectas and state supreme courts which leaves them open to tactical gerrymander to offset potential redistricting loses in the South

    Take for example Arizona

    This November, they could gain both state chambers but to gain the Supreme Court there, it’s imperative Katie Hobbs secure a 2nd term since two justices (Bolick and Chief Justice Timmer) will reach mandatory retirement age by then. However, even with that, it’ll still only be a 4-3 Republican majority…

    Unless Dems take a page from Republicans and actually invest in retention elections against Republicans judges. This coming November, it’s Vice Chief Lopez IV and in 2028, it’s Justices Beene and Montgomery. If they’re successful, then they could very well get a 6-1 Democratic majority by 2030

    Liked by 1 person

    • Mike's avatar

      Always nice to see my state mentioned here but Arizona redistricting is done via an independent commission per our state constitution. If we wanted to gerrymander, we’d likely need a ballot initiative to overturn or temporary supercede the congressional districts which is not something that’ll happen here. Our Republican gov. in 2012 tried to void the commission map but was overruled by the courts.

      P.S. Fun Fact: The “independent” tie breaking chairwoman in our 2022 redistricting committee, that the Dems agreed with the Reps on, was a registered republican her entire life until 2016.

      No surprise something like 2/3 of her tie breaking votes on boundary lines were with the 2 Republican members of the committee. I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in Arizona’s Dems being as competent as CA or VA.

      Liked by 2 people

  15. Rick's avatar

    I hope that Maine 2026 is not a repeat of 2020 Maine, where Democratic nominee Sara Gideon seemed to lead throughout the campaign but lost by rather convincing margin.

    Now, this is certainly looking like a throw the bums out election, and that bolds well for Platner. And Trump 2.0 is far, far worse than Trump 1.0.

    Plus, he’s been ahead in polls above margin of error.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Ryan J's avatar

    I was on Instagram this morning and I saw a video of Sen. Blumenthal asking this question to Michael Hendershot, Rob Jones, John Marck, & Jeffrey Kuntz: “Who won the 2020 election?”

    Hendershot went first and said “Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 election”. The other three all said “What he said” when they were asked the same question. Blumenthal then called them cowards and pointed out that they are afraid of President Trump. It’s deeply concerning that these four soon-to-be Trump judges (and probably many more) refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. Props to Blumenthal for exposing them as cowards (at best) or at worst, hacks who will rule however Trump tells them to.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ryan J's avatar

      The Pennsylvania Supreme Court isn’t as liberal as people make it out to be. Even before David Wecht’s switch, he and Kevin Dougherty sometimes sided with the court’s 2 Republicans in major cases.

      While I think Wecht is generally a pretty fair and balanced judge, he authored the infamous ruling overturning Bill Cosby’s conviction.

      Liked by 1 person

  19. Dequan's avatar

    We have our first sitting judges nominated in Trump 2.0 to circuit court seats. Daniel Domenico to the Tenth Circuit & Daniel Traynor to the Eighth.

    Also two Texas nominees & more infuriating, a nominee to a purple state (Fetterman I’m sure is playing nice) & a blue state Michigan.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Ryan J's avatar

      Not surprised that Traynor and Domenico are the first sitting district judges to be elevated, as both have recently ruled in favor of ICE’s mandatory detention policy, possibly to “prove their loyalty” to Trump.

      I don’t know too much about any of the district court nominees, but none of them have immediate red flags.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. Mitch's avatar

    Here is a list of the judicial nominees for today:

    Daniel Traynor: judge on the U.S. District Court of North Dakota, former lawyer specializing in insurance and personal injury law, for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. I’m kind of surprised, one of the U.S. Senators must have pushed for him.

    Daniel Dominico: Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court of Colorado, former state Solicitor General, for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Senator Michael Bennet played nice and supported him for his current post, I don’t expect a repeat performance this year. Unless there’s some kind of compromise on his successor on District Court agreed to.

    Kasdin Mitchell: currently a partner at Kirkland & Ellis at its Dallas office, for the District of Northern Texas. She was a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Energy, and a former Press Secretary for First Lady Laura Bush. Recently she represented facebook and won a $12 billion settlement against the government.

    Angela Colmenaro: Deputy Chief of Staff and former Deputy Counsel for Texas Governor Greg Abbot, who lobbied for her, for the District Court of Southern Texas. Also a former Assistant state Attorney General.

    Antonio Pozos: currently a white collar defense lawyer at the white shoe law firm of Faerge Drinker in Philadelphia, former AUSA for Eastern Pennsylvania, specialized in fraud and corruption cases. Is he Trump’s first Hispanic nominee for his second term? In any case, he doesn’t seem to be controversial, I wont be surprised for John Fetterman to return a blue slip.

    Michael Martin: AUSA of Eastern Michigan for 20 years, currently Chief of its Criminal Division. Won some fame for prosecuting the Underwear Bomber, who attempted a terrorist bombing on a passenger airplane. Elissa Slotkin got dinged for being one of the “sedition six,” perhaps she wants to play nice for publicity on this nomination, who seems to be a consensus nominee.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Dequan's avatar

      I believe Angela Colmenaro is also Hispanic. A batch with two Hispanic, two woman & two sitting judges for circuit court nominees from Trump 2.0. You can definitely tell we are getting close to the midterms.

      I am almost sure Fetterman will turn in his blue slip for Pozos. I would be less surprised if Slotkin turns in her blue slip then if Peters turned his in. I still am holding out hope Grassley will ditch blue slips because I doubt Democrats ever will on their own but it’s more likely the White House cleared both nominees with the three Democrat senators.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Mitch's avatar

        I found something interesting on Michael Martin. He clerked for Judge Edward Harrington for the District of Massachusetts and Henry Bownes for the First Circuit Court of Appeals Bownes was appointed by Jimmy Carter after serving as a District Judge appointed by LBJ. Harrington was appointed by Ronald Reagan, but had been U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts during the Carter Administration.

        Liked by 2 people

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