This Week in the Senate: 7/15/2019

This week, the Senate is holding votes on four nominations and four treaties, and the Judiciary Committee will convene a nominations hearing and an executive business meeting.

Floor Action:
Monday:

• The Senate will vote at 5:30 pm to invoke cloture on the nomination of U.S. District Judge Judge Peter J. Phipps of the Western District of Pennsylvania to be a judge of the Third Circuit. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) has not returned blue slip on Phipps, but like Judge Joseph Bianco, now of the Second Circuit, he is a relatively noncontroversial district judge, so expect some Democrats to defect and support his nomination instead of the party-line vote we have come to expect.

Tuesday:

• After burning close to 30 hours of postcloture debate on the Phipps nomination, there will be a vote on confirmation, and then there will be cloture votes on four tax treaties, one each with Spain, Switzerland, Japan, and Luxembourg.

Wednesday:

• The Senate will vote to ratify the four treaties, with the required 2/3rds supermajority in place, and then will vote to invoke cloture on the nomination of Judge Clifton Corker (no relation to former Sen. Bob Corker) to be a district judge of the Eastern District of Tennessee. Corker has faced criticism from many Democrats over published op-eds he wrote while a college student, and as such this vote will be along close to party lines. Then, the Senate will vote to invoke cloture on the nomination of Lynda Blanchard to be Ambassador to Slovenia.

Thursday:

• The Senate will vote on confirming the Corker and Blanchard nominations, and then will vote to invoke cloture on and confirm the nomination of Donald Tapia to be Ambassador to Jamaica.

On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee will hold a nominations hearing for the following nominees:

Court of Appeals:

1. Halil Suleyman Ozerden, to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit

District Court / Court of Federal Claims:

1. David B. Barlow, to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of Utah
2. John Fitzgerald Kness, to be a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois
3. Eleni Maria Roumel, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims

On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee will hold an executive session to vote on and/or hold over the following nominations (the number in the parentheses appearing after the nominee's name signifies whether this is the first or second time appearing on the agenda; first-time appearances are typically held over and nominees appearing for the second time usually receive votes):

District Court:

1. Douglas Russell Cole, to be a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio (2)
2. Matthew Walden McFarland, to be a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio (2)
3. Robert Anthony Molloy, to be a Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands (2)
4. Kea Whetzal Riggs, to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico (2)