The Judicial Nominations Blog

Last Wednesday, the White House announced the renomination of a batch of attorneys and judges to vacant judgeships on both California district courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Out of the 8 nominees in the bunch, 6 had previously been nominated to their positions in November 2018. They are: Ninth Circuit: Daniel P. Collins , a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson Kenneth K. Lee, a partner at Jenner & Block Central District of California: Stanley Blumenfeld, a Judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court Jeremy B. Rosen , a partner at Horvitz & Levy Mark S. Scarsi , a partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy The history behind the other two nominees is... complicated, to say the least. In the original fall announcement last year,  Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Bumatay was nominated to the Ninth Circuit along with Collins and Lee. But having been sent to the Senate so late in the lame duck, he didn’t receive a hearing (nor di...

Today, the White House renominated many of the judicial nominees left over from last year's session, almost 3 weeks after the 116th Congress began. Out of the 70 Article III and 8 Article I  nominations returned to the president, we saw 51 renominations, a considerable drop in number from the end of last year. I will note that an absence on today's list does not bar any of the missing nominees from being renominated in the near future, but since they weren't submitted to the Senate today for any number of reasons, those issues would have to be cleared up to ensure a successful resolution to the confirmation process. Those missing (whom I discuss in more detail in past posts linked above) include former district court nominees Thomas Farr , Gordon Giampietro, Jon Katchen , and John M. O'Connor , and former Court of Federal Claims nominee Maureen Ohlhausen . These failed nominees sum up to 5, but there are still 22 nominees left to make up the difference bet...

Today, the White House announced its 19th batch of judicial nominations , the first of 2019 and the 116th Congress. It included 6 district court nominees, many to courts with judicial emergencies , as defined by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The nominees include: Greg G. Guidry , a Justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court , to the Eastern District of Louisiana. While ordinarily it could be considered a demotion for state supreme court justices to get nominated to federal district courts, the Trump administration has made some sort of habit out of it, nominating Justice Patrick Wyrick to the Western District of Oklahoma last year. Before joining the state bench, Guidry was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. If confirmed, Guidry would fill 1 of the 2 vacancies on the district court's bench, with Wendy Vitter already waiting to be confirmed for the other seat. Wes Hendrix, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern...