Senate Panel Advances Circuit Pick Who Drew Conservative Ire

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced President Donald Trump’s pick for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who attracted rare conservative pushback.

Rebecca Taibleson cleared the Republican-led panel, 12-10, on Thursday on a party line vote. Her nomination to the court that covers Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana now goes to the full Senate for consideration.

Taibleson clerked for Justices Brett Kavanaugh when he served as an appeals court judge, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. She testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 in support of Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court as he faced allegations of sexual assault, which he denied. Taibleson also previously worked as assistant to the US solicitor general during Trump’s first presidency.

But leaders at the Council for National Policy, First Liberty Institute, and other conservative organization have argued in their pressure campaign against Taibleson that she hasn’t sufficiently proven her commitment to the conservative legal movement, a first for the president who’s aggressively sought to push the judiciary rightward this term.

They’ve pointed to the political donations of her and her husband, and her donation to a Jewish social services and communal organization that supports LGBTQ causes, and the purported left-leaning politics of her synagogue.

One letter signed by a coalition of conservative groups and posted by the Conservative Action Project has since been deleted, and it’s unclear why the letter was removed.

Advancing American Freedom, a conservative organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, has since come to Taibleson’s defense to dispel purported “myths” that she is a “secret liberal.” And Senate Republicans have shown little interest in the conservative pushback.

Taibleson defended her conservative bona fides at her confirmation hearing, including her upbringing by her father, George Mason University law professor Michael I. Krauss, and her early conviction as a first-year law student to clerk for Scalia.

“I was raised by a very conservative law professor, and it has stuck,” she said at the Sept. 17 hearing.

The panel also advanced several of Trump’s district court picks with bipartisan support. They include Lindsey Ann Freeman for the Middle District of North Carolina; Matthew Orso for the Western District of North Carolina; and Susan Courtwright Rodriguez for the Western District of North Carolina.

The panel’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) voted for Freeman, Orso, and Courtwright Rodriguez. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Chris Coons of Delaware, and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii supported Courtwright Rodriguez. And Klobuchar also voted for Freeman.

This is the second instance in which Senate Judiciary Democrats have voted to advance Trump’s trial court picks, even as progressive groups urge them to oppose all of his judicial nominees.

David Bragdon for the Middle District of North Carolina advanced along party lines.