Progressives Angered by Judge Deal Leaving Out Circuit Picks (1)

Progressives are unhappy that Senate Democrats abandoned Joe Biden’s remaining appellate nominees in a deal to advance remaining trial court picks, as Republicans employed stalling tactics to slowdown confirmations.

The agreement between Senate Democrats and Republicans derails Biden’s efforts to place judges on four federal circuit courts, before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

“I can’t do four years of the Democrats rolling over. This is pathetic,” Molly Coleman, Executive Director of the People’s Parity Project said in a Bluesky post. “Do your jobs, or step aside for somebody who will.”

The agreement comes as progressives fear how Republicans will further mold the federal judiciary. Trump is expected to rely less heavily on establishment Federalist Society conservatives as he seeks judges who will rule in his favor.

Come January, Trump will get a chance to further cement his legacy on the courts after making 234 lifetime appointments of mostly younger, conservative judges in his first term. That includes three Supreme Court justices and 54 appellate judges.

Progressives pushed Democrats to match or exceed Trump’s record on the appellate bench, which are often the last stop for most cases that never reach the Supreme Court. The deal leaves Biden at just 45 lifetime appellate confirmations.

“We expect better than handing Trump more opportunities to damage our courts and our country, and there’s still time to right the course,” Alliance for Justice interim co-president Keith Thirion said in a statement.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a Judiciary committee member, second guessed the Democratic retreat on circuit nominees in a statement Friday.

“These nominees emerge from hours-long hearings where many have faced unfounded personal and professional attacks from Republicans on the Judiciary Committee,” Hirono said. “The circuit courts are one step removed from the Supreme Court, which makes these nominees especially critical.”

Republican Opportunities

At least two of Biden’s remaining appellate picks didn’t have the votes to get confirmed, which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office confirmed.

Adeel Mangi, who would have been the first Muslim federal appellate judge, attracted Democratic opposition amid conservative-led allegations that he affiliated himself with antisemitic and anti-police organizations.

Conservatives had drawn attention to Mangi’s past affiliation with a Rutgers Law School center they say has platformed pro-terrorism and antisemitic material about the Israel-Hamas war and 9/11. Those critics also cite Mangi’s connection to a criminal justice non-profit with ties to Kathy Boudin, who was convicted for her involvement in a notorious 1981 Brink’s armored truck robbery that resulted in two police killings.

The White House called the opposition to Mangi a “cruel, Islamophobic, smear campaign.”

Nevada’s Democratic senators and Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Manchin of West Virginia publicly opposed Mangi, enough to sink the Third Circuit nomination.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also said he whipped enough opposition votes to block Ryan Park’s bid for the Fourth Circuit, citing the White House’s refusal to have good-faith consultation with North Carolina’s Republican home-state senators on the vacancy. The White House has denied those claims.

The deal effectively puts vacancies on the Third and First Circuit in Trump’s hands, after both judges who created the vacancies have either completely retired from the bench or semi-retired earlier this year.

The Mangi nomination defeat cements a Republican-appointee majority on the Third Circuit, which currently has four Trump-appointed judges. Another Delaware-based vacancy will also go to Trump, after Biden never named a nominee for the seat.

“As Pennsylvania continues to play a decisive role in our national elections, this circuit couldn’t be more important,” said Robert Luther III, a former Trump White House lawyer who prepared judicial nominees for Senate hearings and is now a George Mason University law professor.

The First Circuit vacancy gives Trump a chance to add a conservative voice on a court that exclusively has Democratic-appointed judges on its active bench.

Judges James Wynn of the Fourth Circuit and Jane Branstetter Stranch of the Sixth Circuit could still walk back their plans to semi-retire, since their vacancies are contingent on the confirmation of successors. Neither judge immediately returned requests for comment. Wynn and Stranch were appointed by Barack Obama.

Trump could create an even-divide between Republican and Democratic-appointed judges on the Fourth Circuit with Wynn’s vacancy. And he could bolster a Republican-appointee majority on the Sixth Circuit with Stranch’s seat.

Republican senators for North Carolina and Tennessee, where Stranch sits, are adamant that the vacancies should be left open for the next administration.

“I expect that the judges who submitted their retirements will not play partisan politics with a presidential transition and a bipartisan Senate deal by going back on their word to retire,” Tillis said in a statement Thursday. “No judges did this during the previous lame duck because the judiciary needs to be above partisan politics.”