Biden Pivots to Red State Trial, Appellate Court Seats in 2023

The White House turned to working with Republicans to select judicial nominees this year, as court vacancies in states led by Democrats dried up and left the majority of openings in states with two GOP senators.

President Joe Biden had spent the first two years in office filling seats in blue states, those represented by two Democrats in the Senate.

Biden succeeded in appointing Irma Carrillo Ramirez to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit with the support of GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas, and Richard Federico to the Tenth Circuit with the backing of Republicans Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Current Senate tradition doesn’t require that appellate nominees earn home-state senator support to move forward in the chamber. But Biden has worked to gain this approval from Republicans, helping to ease their vetting with often bipartisan support. They also go on to support his trial court nominations, which do require home-state senator sign-off.

The nomination of John Kazen, tapped for the Southern District of Texas with both Cornyn and Cruz’s support, is one such example. He’s set to get a floor vote in 2024 after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) filed cloture on his nomination at the tail end of the year.

The White House achieved Republican home-state senator approval for nominees in Texas and Oklahoma, Indiana, Louisiana, and Florida this year.

In total, Biden named 19 nominees for trial court vacancies in red states and three appellate selections.

The Senate confirmed seven trial court picks and three circuit court nominees in red states, some of whom were nominated in 2022.

Nine nominees are pending, including a handful of Florida and South Carolina district court picks awaiting votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It remains unclear whether the Biden administration can continue its momentum on naming red state nominees as the election year approaches.

As of Dec. 19, 70% of roughly 27 trial court vacancies without a pending nominee are in red states. Another two are in states with one Republican senator, and an additional seven of 27 future district court vacancies—those in which a sitting judge plans to step back but hasn’t done so yet—are in red states.

Other Nominees

There are several other trial court nominees whose wait for confirmation are notable, and a few who’ll enter their third calendar year in January without a vote by the full Senate.

Charnelle Bjelkengren, tapped for the Eastern District of Washington, and Todd Edelman, selected for the DC District, were nominated in September 2022.

Republicans say Edelman, a DC Superior Court judge whose nomination to the federal bench under Barack Obama went nowhere in the Senate, isn’t tough enough on criminals. And they contend Bjelkengren, a county judge in Washington state, isn’t suited for appointment after she fumbled questions at her confirmation hearing.

A handful of other nominees had rough confirmation hearings due to Republican pushback, or appear to be idling for other reasons. These include trial court picks Eumi Lee for the Northern District of California; Mustafa Kasubhai for the District of Oregon.

Karoline Mehalchick for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and Kato Crews for the District of Colorado can expect floor votes in the new year after Schumer filed cloture on their nominations before senators left for the holidays.