Democrats confirmed two more Biden judicial nominees to lifetime posts Wednesday in narrow votes, in part due to the absences of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Braun (R-IN).
The votes took place as Republican senators faced pressure from conservatives and President-elect Donald Trump to return to Washington to help thwart Democrats from confirming more of President Joe Biden‘s nominees to lifetime posts as federal judges. If the two senators had voted, the nominees would not have been cleared Wednesday because Vice President Kamala Harris would have been unavailable to break the 50-50 tie.
Trump has called on Republicans in the Senate to “Hold the Line” as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is leading an expedited effort to confirm as many federal judges before Biden leaves office in January 2025.
On Wednesday, Biden nominee Amir Ali was confirmed to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia in a 50-49 vote, and Rebecca Pennell was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, 50-48. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) voted against Pennell and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) joined Republicans against Ali.
CONFIRMED: Rebecca Pennell to the Eastern District of Washington
Judge Pennell’s career spans nearly two decades, and she’s served as a litigator and now a state appellate court judge.
Her courtroom experience and deep ties to the state ensure she’s ready to serve on day one. pic.twitter.com/dmxJyvJ1M5
— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) November 20, 2024
Senate Democrats are set to continue confirming judges. They have now confirmed 219 of Biden’s federal judicial nominees, putting the party just 15 away from matching Trump’s total of 234 judges appointed during his first term in office.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner that “we were disappointed, and we’re working hard to get everybody back.”
“Some of these [positions] are critical, and it would be great if we could have the next president make those appointments instead,” Rounds said, adding that, despite efforts to bring senators back to the halls of Congress, “there are some challenges for getting them in.”
Republicans in the Senate are now facing growing criticism over respective absences this week.
Matt Whitlock, a former congressional staffer to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), argued that the confirmation of the “radical” nominee Ali could have been thwarted if “every Republican was present and voted they could literally stop this confirmation because Kamala is in Hawaii.”
Cruz flew back to Washington on Wednesday in time to vote against Ali after he spent Tuesday traveling with Trump, who was in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley to witness the launch of a SpaceX rocket alongside the president-elect’s close confidant Elon Musk.
“I joined the president traveling to the SpaceX launch in my home state of Texas. I am back now, and for the last four years, have been leading the fight against terrible judicial nominees,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner, noting that “it is shameful seeing Chuck Schumer trying to ram through radicals on to the court who would undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
A representative for Braun’s office did not respond to a request for comment. He was reportedly away at a Republican Governors Association meeting ahead of his inauguration as governor of Indiana in January 2025.
The confirmation of Judge Embry Kidd to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Tuesday set off alarms for Trump, who has repeatedly called for GOP senators to take every effort to block the president’s nominees until Inauguration Day in two months.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump posted to X Wednesday. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s soon-to-be vice president, returned to the Capitol on Tuesday after he was among several absent senators earlier this week.
But Republicans will still struggle to block Biden’s judges even if all members are in attendance, due to Senate Democrats’ majority.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), is scheduled to proceed with a business meeting Thursday morning to consider the nominations of six more federal district court nominees.
Meanwhile, Democrats are eyeing a confirmation of Ryan Park, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, after he was advanced through the Judiciary Committee last week. The 4th Circuit is narrowly split between Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges.
Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ted Budd (R-NC) have threatened to punish Democrats for pushing Park’s nomination through, maintaining since July that Biden’s party does not have the votes to confirm the judge and in objection to the White House failing to seek advice and consent of the North Carolina lawmakers, a tradition known as the “blue slip” process.
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Experts who track the judicial confirmation process have said Biden has a chance to outperform Trump on the total quantity of confirmations, though the president will falter in the number of Supreme Court and federal appeals court confirmations.
Biden, who nominated Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the high court in 2022, has had 45 appeals court judges confirmed, while Trump nominated three justices and 54 appeals court judges before leaving office.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
