In what could be seen as a historic moment in modern American political history, Senate Democrats have gifted Donald Trump four circuit court seats in exchange for expediting 11 district court vacancies. The deal was brought about by Senate Republicans stalling confirmation hearings so effectively that the Democrat leadership cried, “Uncle.”
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“The reality was we had a serious question as to whether we had the votes on the floor for these four nominees and balancing the opportunity for record number of district court judges against that possibility,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told the Washington Examiner.
The last-minute push to confirm judges before the change of administrations has been the subject of controversy; see UPDATED: A Radical Judge Just Got a Lifetime Appointment Because Republicans Didn’t Show Up to Stop It.
Even though the GOP had been very successful in fighting a delaying action, they were not sure how long they could keep it up. By the same token, the Democrats didn’t want to end the session with a large number of pending nominations. On the GOP side, putting together a block of 50 votes was becoming a challenge as JD Vance and Marco Rubio were consumed in preparing for new positions in the Trump administration.
“The fatigue factor is one way of managing the floor, because if everybody’s totally exhausted, then they’re looking for ways to meet some sort of negotiated outcome,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said. “That’s what happened.”
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) brokered the deal on the Republican side. Arizona Independent Kyrsten Sinema represented the Democrats.
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The four appeals court nominations that will expire with the new Congress are Ryan Park, of North Carolina, for the 4th Circuit; Julia Lipez, of Maine, for the 1st Circuit; Karla Campbell, of Tennessee, for the 6th Circuit; and Adeel Mangi, of New Jersey, for the 3rd Circuit.
Some of these nominations, like that of Ryan Park, seemed to be dead already:
A U.S. Senate panel on Thursday advanced the nomination of one of Democratic President Joe Biden’s final picks to serve as a federal appeals court judge over the objections of Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who warned he had secured enough votes to potentially prevent the nominee from being confirmed.
President Trump will fill These positions.
The positive thing about this interaction was that both sides were able to act like adults. While the Democrats got 11 district court judges, the Republicans arguably got the better deal with four circuit court picks.
