Two Republicans Resist Trump Demand on Biden Judicial Picks (1)

Two Republicans have fully or partly ignored President-elect Donald Trump’s mandate for GOP senators to oppose confirmation of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees in the post-election lame duck session.

Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have voted this week for Biden picks, defying Trump’s demand since winning election Nov. 5 that Republicans not allow Democrats to “ram through” any more of them.

Collins and Murkowski voted for April Perry’s 51-44 confirmation to the Chicago-based Northern District of Illinois on Tuesday. Murkowski voted for Jonathan Hawley’s appointment, 50-46, to the Central District of Illinois on Wednesday. Collins voted no on that one.

All other Republicans voting on judges, however, are obeying the president-elect’s edict. That includes Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Tillis and Graham have at times offered rare Republican support for some of Biden’s judicial nominees. They voted in committee to advance Perry and Hawley, but walked back that support on the Senate floor.

Collins and Murkowski have held some sway on judicial nominees in the narrowly divided Senate under Biden and during Trump’s first term, but they’ll wield less power when Republicans take control of the Senate with a 53-47 majority in January.

Trump returns to the White House with less than half of the vacancies he started with at the beginning of his last term in 2017, with just 45 current seats open. The number will be much lower if Democrats confirm even more Biden judicial picks between now and the end of the year.

More than two dozen district and circuit seats are in the pipeline, but how many Senate Democrats actually get to is not clear.

The Senate will also vote Thursday on whether to end debate on Embry Kidd’s nomination to a Florida seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, setting up another test for Republican loyalty in the Senate.

Kidd received no Republican approval in committee, and Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Manchin of West Virginia has vowed not to support any nominees who haven’t gotten bipartisan support.