Seventh Circuit Pick Advances Senate Panel Absent GOP Support

The Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly advanced the federal appellate nomination of Nancy Maldonado, who’s a judicial trailblazer for Hispanic women.

Maldonado’s nomination to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cleared the panel, 11-10, on Thursday with no Republican support.

She would succeed the first woman to serve on the Seventh Circuit, Ilana Rovner, if confirmed by the full Senate. Rovner announced plans to take a form of semi-retirement in January.

Maldonado was the first Latina trial court judge on the Northern District of Illinois when appointed by Joe Biden in 2022.

Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended her record, after Republicans had grilled her about her productivity and pressed her on why she hasn’t moved cases faster.

“Of the nearly 1,000 cases that have been assigned to her, she’s resolved over 650 since October 2022,” Durbin said during his opening remarks. “Notably, she has never, never been reversed by a reviewing court.”

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) led the GOP scrutiny of Maldonado at her March 20 confirmation hearing.

They complained about her civil case docket, which included 125 motions pending longer than six months as of last Sept. 30, according to the latest available statistics. That was higher than other trial court judges in the district, before which 672 motions were pending in 1,726 cases. Republicans say she also ranked high among judges in the entire Seventh Circuit and nationally for motions pending.

“Help me understand why you have such an abysmal record in moving cases. It costs a lot of money to litigate and people are paying lawyers and time is money,” said Kennedy.

Maldonado said at the hearing that she’s “still working” at reducing the number of motions before her and pushed back on criticism of her record, saying she stresses the quality of her decision-making.

“I stand by my record and I give parties what they need,” she said in a tense exchange with Kennedy. “I’m regularly in my courtroom. I’m regularly issuing decisions. I just came on at a very difficult time when there was a backlog in the courts.”

She explained that she inherited 300 cases with existing motions when she took the bench in October of 2022. Covid-related disruptions in court operations, colleague retirements, and a regular stream of new cases added more to her docket.

Maldonado was confirmed to the trial bench with the help of four Republican senators, including Graham.

Also Thursday, the panel advanced Sparkle Sooknanan for the District of Columbia’s US trial court, 11-10.

Her nomination and approval by the committee comes after Todd Edelman’s nomination to the court lapsed at the end of 2023 and the Biden White House didn’t renominate him in the new year.

Republicans had said Edelman, a DC Superior Court judge whose nomination to the federal bench by Barack Obama also went nowhere in the Senate, isn’t tough enough on criminals.

Committee members approved Georgia Alexakis for the Northern District of Illinois; Krissa Lanham for the District of Arizona; and Angela Martinez for the District of Arizona with bipartisan support from Graham and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)