The Senate is preparing for what could be the final judicial confirmation votes of President Donald Trump’s presidency, rounding out his much-promoted effort to reshape the federal courts with conservatives.
The Republican-led Senate on Wednesday confirmed Katherine Crytzer to be a district judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee by an unusually close 48-47 vote and Joseph Dawson III for the District of South Carolina by a 56-39 vote. It’s also expected to hold a confirmation vote for another Eastern District of Tennessee nominee, Charles Edward Atchley.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Wednesday there wouldn’t be a hearing on Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, his last appellate selection.
“This will be up to the next administration, from my point of view,” Graham said of the incoming Joe Biden presidency.
Lawmakers are preparing to leave town for the holiday recess, returning when the new Congress begins in early January. A Georgia runoff will determine two seats and which party controls the Senate.
Trump, with the help of Republican allies in the Senate, has had more than 230 federal judicial picks confirmed, including three Supreme Court justices. He fulfilled a 2016 campaign pledge to reshape the judiciary with younger conservatives.
That effort continued even after Biden’s victory in November, defying a decades-long precedent of not doing so in a lame-duck administration.
On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Thomas L. Kirsch to fill Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s old appellate court seat on the Seventh Circuit.
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