Biden Appellate Pick Gets Little GOP Pushback at Senate Hearing

President Joe Biden’s nominee to be only the second Black man appointed to a federal appeals court in the past decade glided through his Senate confirmation hearing.

Embry Kidd, a US magistrate judge in Orlando, Florida, vying for a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, easily handled the kinds of inquiries from Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans that have tripped up other nominees or created partisan controversy.

The former federal prosecutor navigated pop quiz questions on constitutional law from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), and avoided other GOP-fueled moments that have gone viral on social media and in news coverage of judicial nominees.

Aside from questions on the Non-Delegation Doctrine and the War Powers Clause, Republicans also questioned Kidd about his views relative to a law review article written by his law school peer while he was a student at Yale.

The article, in which the author acknowledges that conversations with Kidd shaped the piece, argues that “child rape statutes, though not laden with the exact same racial baggage as more general rape statutes, are still racialized.”

Kidd received minimal pushback from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) who first asked about the piece. Kidd said he doesn’t share the views of the article.

The White House has prioritized demographic diversity in its judicial nominations and has almost doubled the number of Black women on the circuit courts.

Kidd would be Biden’s second Black male appellate appointee after Andre Mathis was confirmed to the Sixth Circuit in 2022.

Kidd would replace Judge Charles Wilson, the second Black judge to serve on the Eleventh Circuit, which covers Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Wilson was appointed by Bill Clinton to the seat vacated by the first Black man on the court, Joseph Hatchett.