Trump gains ability to fill four appellate judge seats under US Senate deal
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans clinched a late-night deal on Wednesday that clears the way for votes on a group of President Joe Biden’s nominees for federal trial courts in exchange for not pushing forward with four nominees to serve on appellate courts, leaving vacancies that Republican President-elect Donald Trump can fill.
The deal, described by a spokesperson for Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, was reached after Senate Republicans launched a campaign to try to stall and prevent Democrats from fulfilling their plan to confirm as many life-tenured judges as possible before Trump takes office in January.
Senate Republicans had previously said they had votes to block at least two of the four appellate court nominees, including Adeel Mangi, who would have become the first Muslim federal appellate judge if confirmed to the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The deal was sure to disappoint progressive advocates who have been pushing Democrats to fill as many judicial vacancies as possible following the Nov. 5 election, which handed the White House to Trump and control of the Senate to Republicans.
“Willingly gifting Donald Trump the chance to appoint judges more committed to political agendas than the rule of law is doing a dangerous disservice to the American people,” Maggie Jo Buchanan, the director of the progressive legal group Demand Justice, said in a statement.
Since the election, the Senate has confirmed eight of Biden’s judge picks, bringing the total number of confirmed judicial nominees to 221. The Democratic-led Senate on Thursday confirmed one more, Sharad Desai, to serve as a trial court judge in Arizona.
Republicans at Trump’s urging had tried to put procedural roadblocks in place to slow down the process and peel away votes in a Senate that Democrats narrowly control 51-49. But several Republican senators have missed votes to confirm judges.
Under the deal, the Senate will vote on confirming seven nominees to district court judges who Schumer had already teed up when it returns from its post-Thanksgiving recess in exchange for no longer pursuing the confirmation of the four nominees to higher-level appellate courts.
The Senate will also take up consideration of five other district court nominees who whose nominations were advanced on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward,” a Schumer spokesperson said in a statement.
The other appellate nominees were Ryan Park, up for a seat on the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Julia Lipez, who was nominated to the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Karla Campbell, who was nominated to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Deepa Babington)