Wisconsin Senators Attempt Bipartisan Judicial Pick With Trump

Senators in one of two remaining states represented by a Republican and a Democrat will soon find out how much weight their bipartisan judicial recommendations carry in the Trump White House.

Wisconsin Sens. Ron Johnson (R) and Tammy Baldwin (D) used a judicial nominating commission to identify a list of five candidates for a pending retirement on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Two candidates on their list had already been interviewed by the White House: Rebecca Taibleson, an assistant US attorney who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the DC Circuit, and Joseph Bugni, an appellate lawyer who’s represented allies of President Donald Trump in the state, according to a source familiar with the White House’s process.

Matthew Krueger, a Trump-appointed US attorney in Wisconsin during the president’s first term; Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights and a former clerk to the semi-retiring Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Sykes; and Luke Berg, deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty who also clerked for Sykes are among the other lawyers who interviewed with the White House.

The state’s senators said the nominating commission has worked as a bipartisan measure between them for over a decade. Each senator selects three members to serve for a total of six. Many senators use local merit-based judicial selection panels that vet and recommend potential nominees to the White House.

“I think we have on both sides three people who are concerned about the legal system within Wisconsin, and they do a good job working with each other,” Johnson said.

Baldwin said “it would be ill-advised of the president to do his own process when we have one set up.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said via email that Trump “always welcomes recommendations by home-state senators and will choose a highly qualified nominee for this important seat.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) speaks to Democrats in Platteville, Wis.

Photographer: Zach C. Cohen/Bloomberg Law

Advice, Consent

The source who requested anonymity to disclose the White House’s internal operations said that Taibleson and Bugni are top contenders so far to replace the Milwaukee-based Sykes. Taibleson’s clerkships with Scalia and Kavanaugh make her similarly credentialed to the conservatives Trump appointed in his first term and some of his most recent appointees.

Bugni’s representation of lawyers who worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election result could appeal to Trump’s interest in nominees who’ve taken controversial positions to defend his interests.

The White House doesn’t have to choose any of the names the Wisconsin senators shared. Circuit nominees no longer require support from their home-state senators to advance toward confirmation, after the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee eliminated the requirement during Trump’s first term.

But bypassing the Wisconsin senators could risk “irrationally alienating Johnson when there’s two sensible people already on the list,” the source said. Johnson, in turn, could lobby against the president’s pick.

It wouldn’t be the first time efforts to strike a bipartisan agreement among the Wisconsin senators and Trump didn’t go well. Judge Michael Brennan, whose Seventh Circuit seat is also in Milwaukee, interviewed with the first Trump White House before he applied for consideration from the Wisconsin commission.

The commission didn’t recommend him for the judgeship, but Trump nominated him anyway. Baldwin withheld her support in protest. Johnson praised the Brennan nomination.

Baldwin said she hopes her Republican counterpart “is as insistent as I am” that Trump consider their recommendations for the current vacancy.

Trump’s choice of Joshua Dunlap, a Maine appellate litigator recommended by an advisory committee convened by moderate Republican Susan Collins for a First Circuit seat, may signal the president’s willingness to work with senators who don’t quite share his politics, said Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution senior nonresident fellow.

But in the event Trump does go his own way, and amid a Senate Republican caucus that’s been largely compliant with the president’s agenda, Wheeler said “I can also easily see Johnson saying, ‘well, we did our best but Trump’s the boss and we’re not gonna argue about it.”