Vera Confirmed as US Trial Judge in California After Long Wait

California state Judge Hernán D. Vera was confirmed to the federal trial court that includes Los Angeles after a 21-month wait.

Vera, 52, was confirmed, 51-48, Tuesday to the US District Court for the Central District of California.

Originally nominated by President Joe Biden in September 2021, his nomination deadlocked twice last Congress in the evenly divided Senate Judiciary Committee before he advanced in February with a decisive Democratic majority.

Confirmed with no Republican support, Vera was part of a group of stalled Biden judicial nominees opposed by GOP members over their progressive legal careers.

Vera has served as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge since 2020 and previously worked as president and CEO of Public Counsel and as an associate and counsel at O’Melveny & Myers. As a state judge, he’s handled dependency cases, many of which involved child abuse or neglect.

“He does what all good judges do: hear both sides,” said Silvia Argueta, executive editor of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, who first met Vera early in their careers. “He brings a wealth of experience and compassion into the courtroom.”

Argueta added that Vera, who is the son of Argentinian immigrants, will add “much needed” diversity to the bench.

Biden nominated Vera to fill a seat left open by Judge Margaret M. Morrow, who’s now retired.

From 2002 to 2014, Vera worked for Public Counsel, which is one of the largest pro bono public interest firms in the country. In one notable case, Reyes v. Kaiser in 2005, Vera represented a homeless woman with dementia. She was left on the street by the hospital she was being treated at, wearing only a hospital gown and socks, according to his Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

Barack Obama in 2010 nominated Vera to serve on the board of directors of the State Justice Institute, where he has served for 13 years. He also served on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission from 2016 to 2020.

Vera earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and his law degree from UCLA.

“My diversity of experience gives me different perspectives or angles to which view the law,” Vera said at his October 2021 confirmation hearing. He said his experience as a defense and public interest lawyer and as a judge, will allow him to “hit the ground running” if confirmed.

In a joint letter supporting Vera’s nomination, three chief justices from the Connecticut, Kentucky, and the Oregon supreme courts, and an associate judge from the New York Court of Appeals said Vera “has the package of skill sets that we admire in the best judges, and we endorse him without reservation for appointment to the federal bench.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized Vera in a June 12 floor speech as a “left-wing” nominee who “has made no effort to hide his willingness to pick progressive activism over the rule of law.”