Tenth Circuit’s Tymkovich to Step Back, Trump Gets New Seat (1)

Tenth Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich will take senior status, opening a seat on the Denver-based federal appeals court for President Donald Trump to fill.

Tymkovich told Trump in a letter sent Tuesday that he would step away from active service upon the confirmation of his successor, according to Greg Heerdt, a Tenth Circuit employee.

“It is my intention to continue to render substantial judicial service as a senior judge,” Tymkovich wrote in the letter.

A George W. Bush appointee and influential judge, Tymkovich has sat on the appeals court since 2003.

The vacancy hands Trump his third opportunity to fill an appeals court seat in recent days. Chief Judges Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit and Debra Ann Livingston of the Second Circuit, both fellow George W. Bush appointees, announced last week that they would also take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for federal judges.

Trump made two appointments to the Tenth Circuit during his first term: Judges Allison Eid and Joel Carson.

The Tenth Circuit has had a number of religious liberty, First Amendment, and free speech cases that have wound up at the US Supreme Court, Tymkovich said last year on a podcast hosted by the Tenth Circuit Historical Society. “For me, and the rest of my colleagues, we don’t pick our cases. They just come rolling in,” he said.

Tymkovich wrote the court’s en banc opinion in 2013 finding that companies including Hobby Lobby could sue over the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. That case was taken up to the US Supreme Court, which later struck down the mandate for companies that oppose it on religious liberty grounds.

He was chief judge of the court from 2015 until 2022. Tymkovich also sits on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which looks over warrant application decisions from a lower court.

Tymkovich testified before Congress last year in favor of a bill that would create new judgeships, after then-President Joe Biden vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have expanded some lower courts.

Tymkovich has an extensive network of former clerks stemming from his decades on the appeals court. He said on the podcast that working with clerks is “a highlight” of his job, and that he and his wife go on an annual ski weekend with current and former clerks.

One of Tymkovich’s former clerks, Daniel Domenico, is Trump’s sole appointee to the US District Court for the District of Colorado. Another is Josh Craddock, who’s currently working in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.