Georgia Alexakis – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

The Dirksen Courthouse - where the Northern District of Illinois sits.

Georgia Alexakis currently serves as Criminal Appellate Chief at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. She is favored to join the federal bench in the next few months.

Background

Georgia N. Alexakis graduated from Harvard University in 2000 and, after working as a consultant for three years, got a J.D. magna cum laude from Northwestern Priztker School of Law in 2006.

After graduation, Alexakis clerked for Judge Marsha Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for Judge Milton Shadur on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Alexakis subsequently joined Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP. Alexakis then became a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois in 2013 and stayed there until 2021 when she came a Partner with Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP. Alexakis rejoined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2022 and currently serves as Chief of Appeals of the Criminal Division.

History of the Seat

Alexakis has been nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. This seat will open on August 1, 2024, when Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer will move to senior status.

Legal Career

Alexakis started her legal career as a clerk to Judges Marsha Berzon and Milton Shadur and was even shouted out by Judge Shadur in multiple opinions for her work. See Love v. Frontier Ins. Co., 526 F. Supp. 2d 859, 861 n.3 (N.D. Ill. 2007) (noting a debt to Judge Berzon for “one of this Court’s two fine law clerks this year, Georgia Alexankis”). See also Patino v. Astrue, 574 F. Supp. 2d 862, 873 n. 10 (N.D. Ill. 2008) (noting that this opinion is “public acknowledgment of the outstanding work that has always been done by my extraordinary law clerk Georgia Alexakis”).

Alexakis subsequently started at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, where she worked on a multi-district litigation involving the potential contamination of U.S. rice crops with non-approved genetically modified strains. See In re Genetically Modified Rice Litig., 666 F. Supp. 2d 1004 (E.D. Mo. 2009). Alexakis also represented Bayer in defending another multidistrict litigation arising from the marketing of low-dose aspirin. See In re Bayer Corp. Combination Aspirin Prods. Mktg. and Sales Practices Litig., 701 F. Supp. 2d 356 (E.D.N.Y. 2010).

The largest portion of Alexakis’ legal career has been with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. Early in her time with the office, Alexakis argued an appeal involving convictions for distribution of heroin and crack cocaine. See United States v. Chapman, 804 F.3d 895 (7th Cir. 2015). In another case, the Seventh Circuit reversed a conviction in a case that Alexakis argued, finding that the district judge should have recused himself from the illegal entry case because he had been involved in the underlying deportation proceeding. See United States v. Herrera-Valdez, 826 F.3d 912 (7th Cir. 2016).

Alexakis has also prosecuted cases of sex trafficking, see, e.g., United States v. Carson, 870 F.3d 584 (7th Cir. 2017), and mail fraud, see, e.g., United States v. Walton, 907 F.3d 548 (7th Cir. 2018). More recently Alexakis defended on appeal the convictions against police officer Marco Proano, for shooting two passengers of a moving sedan. See United States v. Proano, 912 F.3d 431 (7th Cir. 2019). She also convinced the Seventh Circuit to reverse the sentence for Adel Daoud, who had attempted to blow up a fake bomb provided by an FBI agent, as substantively unreasonable. See United States v. Daoud, 980 F.3d 581 (7th Cir. 2020), re’hrg en banc denied by 989 F.3d 610 (7th Cir. 2021).

Overall Assessment

With extensive experience with both civil and criminal litigation, Alexakis should be a fairly uncontroversial choice for the federal bench.

123 Comments

  1. This was the most likely person I saw being nominated out of the list of recommendations that was sent. She was third on my list that I wish would have been nominated but probably the most qualified of them all.

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  4. The 11th Circuit has 5 Florida seats. Of those 3 are currently based in Southern Florida (2 in Miami and 1 in Ft Lauderdale). 1 is in in Northern Florida (Tallahassee). Charles Wilson’s Tampa seat is the only one located in MDFL.

    It’s prob unlikely that Becerra, Leibowitz, or Damian would be considered for the elevation.

    Julie Sneed, who is based in Orlando, could be a possibility, but her elevations would have to come with a full roster of MDFL noms and promises of voice votes.

    Personally, I’m still all in on the WH just skipping negotiations and going with Stacie Harris. She’s known for her work in fighting trafficking which will play well in an election year.

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  5. In a separate subject, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to ban Trump from the ballot. It wasn’t a big surprise. Even liberals on the Court sounded skeptical of it during questioning.

    Liked by 1 person

    • The 9-0 headline hides how contentions the opinion actually was – the liberals and Barrett only concurred in the judgment, so it was partly a 5-4 decision. The conservative majority held that section 3 (the part of the 14th Amendment stating prohibiting insurrectionists from holding office) has no legal effect unless Congress first passes a law “implementing” it. 

      The funny thing is that none of the other sections of the 14th Amendment required Congress to pass a law to have legal effect. And as the liberal concurrence points out, the majority’s holding essentially renders the insurrection clause a dead letter because Congress is not going to pass such a law. Barrett even agreed with the liberals that there was no need to reach such a holding in the first place. So because of this decision, we’re about to see January 6th rioters start running for all sorts of federal offices – any bets on the first state to have a January 6th rioter as a Senator or Governor?

      tl;dr: This Trumpian joke of a SCOTUS takes another step towards stacking the election for their guy. And we’re supposed to act like the court is anything more than Mitch McConnell’s little lapdog? How dumb do they think we are?

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  6. The Alliance for Justice weekly newsletter pointed out that President Obama is an alumnus from Nancy Maldonado’s old law firm. That probably was the deal breaker along with everything else we have discussed on the blog here that got her to be the pick for the 7th so quickly. Here is a copy/paste form the newsletter along with comments regarding Berner & Mangi as well…

    “We are particularly excited to share news of the nomination of Judge Nancy Maldonado, of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, to the Seventh Circuit. AFJ supported Judge Maldonado’s nomination and confirmation to the district court and looks forward to seeing her ascend to the appellate bench, where she will hear appeals from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  

    The firm at which Judge Maldonado practiced before becoming a federal judge in 2022, Miner, Barnhill, and Galland, is a civil rights powerhouse. Its most famous alumnus? President Barack Obama. During her time there, Judge Maldonado focused on labor and employment law, a vital but underrepresented area of expertise when it comes to the federal judiciary. She was also the first Latina to serve on the federal bench in Illinois and will, upon confirmation, be the first Latina on the Seventh Circuit.”

    “Recess is over! Which means it’s time for the Senate to advance the nominations of Nicole Berner, to the Fourth Circuit, and Adeel Mangi, to the Third Circuit. They’ve been waiting for 108 days already.  

    What’s the rush?  

    A quintessential movement lawyer who’s been part of groundbreaking litigation as an LGBTQ+ parent seeking recognition of her family as well as in her capacity as counsel to major reproductive rights and labor advocacy groups, Berner will be the first LGBTQ+ judge on the Fourth Circuit. Mr. Mangi, another award-winning litigator, will be the first Muslim federal appellate court judge. “

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  8. Yesterday was the deadline for CDIL applications and last Thursday was deadline for Minnesota. I think all of the blue state district seats (the publicized searches) should now be in evaluation and soon to be interview phases.

    The next batch of nominees cold be super interesting. There were a bunch of application deadlines in Oct-early Dec, and we might start seeing some of those picks come through, i.e the last AZ seat, MD, EDPA, MDPA, Mass. We might even see a nom for the 1st Circuit if they pick someone who’s already had a background check like the Maine US Attorney.

    One last thing, for the EDPA seat to replace Edward Smith, I’ve been focusing on candidates in Easton since that’s where Smith was from and there’s a court house there; however, I just noticed that the PA senator’s application announcement for this seat says they are considering people in “the Lehigh Valley”. That could mean they’re looking at people in Allentown and Bethlehem as well.

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      • With Edelman, the Committee was already reviewing candidates for the other open seat. That’s why we got a nom so quickly.

        With the WDWA seat, keep in mind that the Senators haven’t looked at any candidates for a long time there. I have to imagine they are rerunning a search committee. I wouldn’t expect a nom there for a while.

        Who knows what’s going on with the WDNY seat. We got the EDNY nom super fast by that one SDNY seat has been there a long time.

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      • Schumer isn’t probably worried too much about taking a long time for New York nominees. With him being majority leader, he knows his states nominees are getting confirmed even if they have to keep the senate in session Christmas Day.

        I really wish next week we get the WDWI nominee. I really will be quite upset if Johnson is allowed to hold yet another seat vacant.

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  10. Personally, I like NY’s method of recommendation best. I know some may think it isn’t transparent, but so what? I vote for my senators to make these decisions, not for them to outsource the process to some selection committee that is self-interested in recommending (professionally) like-minded candidates. That’s how we end up with so many corporate attorney and prosecutor type nominees, because those are what’s on those committees.

    That said, I hate that Schumer takes so long to offer up recommendations. This isn’t a new or Majority Leader thing. Look at the Deborah Batts vacancy from 2012. It took over a year before Vernon Broderick is announced as her replacement. Ironically, I think Gillibrand might be quicker with recommendations, though hers might as well be coming from a selection committee.

    Dems really need to reimagine the judicial selection process.

    To those gunning for a WI nominee in the next batch: what’s changed in the last 3 years? Is Ron Jon no longer the other senator?

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    • Overall I just want the process that will give the best chance to produce a young progressive nominee. In some states such as New Jersey, a commission is much more likely to produce that than the senior senator of the state is. But I do agree overall with what @Gavi said in the interest of saving time.

      Even in my example of New Jersey, if you have a crappy senator then it’s more than likely the commission they recommend likely won’t be too far off. Ultimately the people of the state & progressives need to speak up much early in the process regardless of a commission or not. Colorado is the perfect example of this. We got Regina Rodriguez for the first nominee & progressives spoke up. This led to the senators changing the commission membership & it has produced much better nominees since.

      As for Wisconsin, yup, Johnson will always be Johnson. But for God’s sake can we not at least try? We got the two names of the two men recommended last year. The administration should have just went with one by the end of last year to give a full year to call Johnson’s bluff. Not trying at all just gives him an out completely.

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    • The more obvious solution is that senators can just put better people (including nonlawyers) on their vetting committees – that avoids the risks of people getting a job just because of their connections to the senator and would result in more progressive nominees. Especially for district court nominees, they should both be progressive and actually have trial experience so they can handle the 95% of the job that isn’t political.

      The Washington senators use a committee and their recommendations have been pretty good, whereas any recommendation from Gillibrand’s inner circle would be as bad (if not worse) than a vetting committee full of big law lawyers and prosecutors.

      And good riddance to Sinema – ding dong, the witch is (soon to be) gone.

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  11. Johnson wants to ensure Wisconsin’s district courts are made up of judges like the late Rudolph T. Randa, a George Sr judge who was a rubberstamp for every horrible thing Wisconsin Republicans have done the past decade and a half and who brought the investigations of Scott Walker to a halt.
    Only reason that hasn’t happened is Tammy Baldwin has stopped him with her blue slips, which is a reminder of how the ones for the district court seats are doubled edged swords right now.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Very good news. I belive John Barrassoo took his name out of hte hat for senate leader today as well.

      If Dems can get a little luck in Texas, actually send funds to the Party in Florida & maybe even take a peek at Tennessee, they might be able to pull off flipping one of those seats to offset West Virginia. Of course, holding on to Montana, Ohio & Nevada will be essential.

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  13. With Sinema and Manchin gone, if Dems hold the senate, they’re a lot closer to getting rid of the filibuster. Any chance that they could also amend the rules to do away with cloture votes (at least for nominees) altogether while they’re at it?

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    • @Gavi would know better than me. If I had to guess, I would say you could reduce the amount of cloture time but I don’t think you can get rid of the vote altogether. I believe the vote itself is written in the senate rules. But they could certainly reduce the time which has been done numerous times before. @Gavi feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on my belief.

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  14. If we had a 50-50 senate without Manchin and Sinema, it would be a far more unified than the 50-50 that Democrats had in 2021-22.

    Judicial confirmations would be easier, and if they had the House, we could pass a good voting rights bill, (among other items)

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Yes, if the senate ends up 50/50 in the this scenario (big if) we would have essentially swapped out Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein with Fetterman, Gallego, and Schiff/Porter. Plus Tester and Brown would be on fresh six year terms. The days of the Filibuster may be numbered.

    There would still be a few institutionalists left like King, Coons, maybe Warner, but they’ll be much softer than the people who previously opposed.

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      • OMG I was just thinking about her the other day. It’s ridiculous we have to waste anytime on a Superior court of DC nominee but she’s good enough to deserve the time. Plus she’s been waiting far too long. Hopefully this will be the start of Schumer shifting his focus to the party line nominees.

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      • Fact is, that Noti won’t get a voice vote, that was clear since she was voted out of the Committe of Homeland Security for the first time.

        That the roll call could be done faster, is obvious.

        And it’s also not sure, if the other six nominees, who are actually waiting for a floor vote, are getting one.

        The situation is dire, in the moment there are eleven vacancies, and two more are leaving the bench this and next month, among them Biden-nominee Ranga Rana Putagunta, after a little more of two years. Many judges have quit long before their 15 years term were over, and the situation has not really improved since Biden took office, just not become worse. That job is not popular, and if the working conditions are not improve, we will see more, the Senate is not interested in giving that low priority nominations more attention, and the vicious cycle is starting again. I think the people of D.C. deserve better.

        And yes, there are two more vacancies at the CoA in D.C., one of them is open for more than ten years.

        Both courts should get nominees ASAP. Meanwhile the WH seems to nominate more than one of the three recommendations of each candidate, as further vacancies may open, and maybe accellerating the process a bit.

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  17. Schumer did say that he’ll tee up the minibus vote as soon as the House passes it, there is a possibility of a Friday, if not Saturday session (I highly doubt it would happen Thursday night due to the State of the Union, unless the Senate hilariously recessed itself and came back afterwards).

    If they spend a Friday or Saturday voting I hope it doesn’t come at the cost of giving up being in session on Monday next week (which happened the last time the Senate stayed a weekend to keep the government open, back in late September/early October of last year if I remember). Love to have two full days (Tuesday and Wednesday) and not just one next week.

    The other half of the government funding isn’t up until the 22nd (which is when the Senate takes off for two weeks), so the entirety of next week could go for confirming nominees.

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    • I know I care way more about this then I should, but I would love to talk to somebody in the White House one day regarding the science behind when the commissions are signed. I thought perhaps Melissa Damian was still working on a case so that might be why her commission wasn’t signed the same day as Leibowitz but that obviously wasn’t the case now that I see she got hers 3 days after him. Had she gotten hers the same day, she would have bene ahead of him in seniority. I really want to know the science behind when they are signed… Don’t mind me, just one of those quirky things that bothers me… Haaaaa

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  21. The nominees expected at tomorrow’s SJC hearing still haven’t been posted. While I think we all know who will be appearing, the big question though is whether or not Kanter, who wasn’t part of the last hearing, will also appear, which would give us five nominees for this hearing.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. In Senate campaign news, Colin Allred in Texas looks to be sailing towards the nomination and will win without a runoff. I expect Cruz to win re-election in November and won’t get my hopes up but if Republicans are having a bad night and Biden were to keep his performance in Texas close, this race could get a lot more interesting (a lot would depend if Allred could outrun Biden, which given Cruz’s likability problems it’s definitely a possibility).

    Picking up this seat would obviously go a long way to holding the Senate and from a blue slip perspective, you’d have to think Allred/Cornyn would be far easier to negotiate with than Cruz/Cornyn.

    I also wonder how much of an effect Dobbs could have on this race. When Cruz easily won in 2012, Texas was much redder and Democrats didn’t put a penny into contesting the race. Cruz held on by about 3 points in 2018 during a blue wave midterm but also in a pre-Dobbs environment. This would be Cruz’s first time confronting voters post-Dobbs, and Texas isn’t the rock-red state it used to be, and I’m sure there’s a mountain of material of Cruz’s past stances on abortions that could boost Allred. Not only that, I’m sure there’s a statement or two from Cruz out in support of Texas’s draconian abortion ban.

    Liked by 3 people

    • I felt Colin Allred was the best chance to defeat Cruz of any so I’m happy he will be his opponent. I’ll be even happier if national Democrats treat Texas as the next Georgia & give it the funding it deserves. Democrats need to go on the offensive in red states like Republicans do in blue states like Maryland. They may not win most of them, but with the senate composition, even winning one could be the difference between majority leader Schumer or Thune.

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      • 100% agree with this! Allred is a great candidate and will give Cruz a run for his money. One caution though, he needs to be careful to focus his campaign. Beto made the mistake to support every left-wing position he was asked to back, Allred needs to avoid that. 

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  24. Based on the SJQs that have been uploaded to the committee website, it appears that tomorrow’s nomination hearing will only feature the four nominees from the Februrary 7th batch. Unclear what is going on with Kanter as her SJQ has not been uploaded.

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  25. Almost three year spread for the first point of contact (submission of resume/application or conversation with relevant point person) among the four nominees.

    Bulsara: January 2021 (!)

    Schulte: January 9 2023

    Coggins: October 2023

    Theeler: December 8 2023

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    • Despite the 2021 application, Bulsara’s WH interview was just on this January 4. That’s just 34 days before he was announced, which is a new fastest mark for any of Biden’s district nominees. Julien Neals was the previous fastest, at 39 days. They were either very confident or were rushing, but I’m guessing the latter, which at least shows their commitment to getting nominees out in time for hearings.

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  26. The California congressional primaries were held on Super Tuesday. For the Senate race, Schiff and a Republican made it to the election in November, so Schiff will almost certainly be California’s next Senator. I wonder if he’ll get Butler’s SJC seat, but I’m sure if Democrats lose the Senate the Butler seat will most likely get the axe.

    The other SJC Democrats up this year are Klobuchar, Whitehouse, and Hirono, none of which should have any problems getting re-elected.

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  28. I know people are kinda meh about Bulsara but there’s some good stuff in his questionnaire.

    • He was a Kaplan LSAT instructor – so bring on your quizzes, Professor Kennedy
    • There are a lot of things that indicate that he’s based in Queens, whereas I believe the bulk of EDNY judges live in Brooklyn.Those I’d argue that he’s adding some important geographic diversity to the court.
    • He was a board member of the American Constitution Society which at HLS. I could see this coming up during the hearing.
    • He was a guest lecturer at Columbia Law on “Election Law for Civil Rights Lawyers”

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  29. Seriously with all these campaign news. Is there not a more relevant forum folks can engage in the horserace to your heart’s content? And don’t try to make every election news about the judiciary. If you squint hard enough, everything is about the judiciary.

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    • Sorry to tell you @Gavi but elections have direct relevance to judges. The name of this site is The Vetting Room. Senators are the 100 people who vet judicial nominees. I would say they are equally if not even more important to what judges gets on the bench then the president himself.

      This is one we completely disagree on. So bring on the senate news all. I want to know as much as possible about each & every race so I know do we have a chance at any more Dale Ho’s… Lol

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    • Yes, 100% agree with @Gavi that the posts speculating about elections and amateurish election analysis (both which I’m also guilty of) should be left to another forum where there’s actually data/analysis and not just vibes. We’ll find out whether Dems can still nominate/confirm judges when we get election results in November – downplaying or panicking about the latest poll or whatever isn’t going to change that. 

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      • I think most of us are giving our opinions on the people running for the senate based on what we have seen, not based on polls. We do the same thing for the judicial nominees. I haven’t seen much talk about polls on this site.

        The bottom line is the 100 US senators directly impact what judges we get. They will be discussed on this blog at great length as a result. The blog is an open forum. I agree long winded rants should be avoided but to be honest even when we get our bi-weekly @aangren rants, I just read it & keep it moving.

        I don’t waste time trying to censor what people say on a blog. If Harsh doesn’t set any guidelines I certainly have no right to do so. But even if there were restrictions, discussing the people who vet judges on a blog called The Vetting Room wouldn’t be one of them.

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  32. Here is my recap from todays SJC hearing;

    Durbin started off by stating Graham was running late. Butler introduced Coggins. She mentioned the EDCA district is the sixth highest work load per judge. 

    Thune introduced the South Dakota nominees next. Schumer then spoke. He confirmed he recommended Bulsara. His last line was “I look forward to confirming more judges in the weeks & months to come”. 

    Rounds then spoke about both South Dakota nominees. Durbin then gushed over Thune & Rounds working with the White House to get the two nominees today. 

    Padilla then spoke about Coggins. Graham arrived & spoke about problems working on background checks. He didn’t elaborate. 

    Durbin & Graham then had uneventful questions. Then Durbin called on Hirono but then apologized & said it was actually Butler’s turn. This confused me since Hirono has seniority. 

    Kennedy then asked Coggins about her role in advising governor Jerry Brown on parole. He asked her about James Shodenfield, who was convicted of kidnapping 26 children & birthing them alive. Governor Brown pardoned him. He asked Coggins if she agreed with the decision. She said she would need to look at the entire file before making an assessment. 

    Kennedy then asked Bulsura about a case he ruled on involving J&J Sports Products. Kennedy spoke about the district court reversing his decision. 

    Hirono then asked her normal two questions. She then spoke about diversity & Schulte’s poetry writing. 

    Lee then asked Bulsura about statements made about the National Asian Pacific Bar Association, an organization he sat on the board of. He then asked him if males should compete in woman’s sports due to NAPBA’s support for such policies. Bulsura declined to comment because the subjects Lee was bringing up could come before the court. Lee then said perhaps he shouldn’t be a member of a group that holds those views if he can’t comment. 

    Ossoff then begin questioning. He was wearing a mask so I’m not sure if he was under the weather. Padilla then asked questioned. He spoke about diversity on the bench as well as law clerks. He then gave Coggins a chance to complete her response to Kennedy’s earlier question regarding her advice to Governor Brown regarding paroles. 

    Kennedy then asked Durbin since they had time left could he have a second round of questioning. Durbin politely denied his request. 

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    • I can’t imagine what could be the issue with Kanter but if there is one I wish they would hurry up & replace her. The only other Biden nominee I could think of that missed two hearings when there was a slot available in both & was still confirmed was Orelia Merchant. I believe her mother passed away so that was understandable.

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      • Graham’s comment was honestly the most important thing that I got out of the hearing today. I wish he had elaborated more on it. I doubt he was talking about anything related to Kanter though. I would imagine he was telling more about something pre-announcement. My guess would be it was regarding red state recommendations.

        He said he would talk to Durbin about it later. Whatever it is, it needs to be dealt with ASAP. It’s March already. And as we can see from today, we aren’t filling six hearing slots per hearing. Hell we aren’t even filling five slots.

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  35. Switching gears a bit, last week The White House dropped the last requirement for anybody meeting with the President to get a Covid test. I hope with the relaxing of CDC Covid guidelines, this goes for the senate as well. Since only Democrats seem to still test & announce when they are positive, I hope this means they will change their current policy of missing a week of work whenever they get Covid.

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  37. That Mining Commission nominee or whoever just had cloture invoked, it was a 50-49 vote. I was at lunch for the first half of the vote but saw Sinema voting No. Britt didn’t vote so the Vice President wasn’t needed. Democrats are at full attendance today, while obviously I wish a party-line judge could have been voted on today at least they’re working on other nominations with tough votes.

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      • I learned yesterday that Republicans haven’t even delivered the impeachment articles to the Senate, so there’s nothing the Senate can do at this moment. Some House Republicans I guess want assurance that the Senate will hold a trial, which there’s definitely bipartisan opposition to one. If that’s the case then the Senate can just go about their day lol.

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      • I think it’s like voting on a House-passed bill, it’s not just enough for the House to pass it, they officially have to send it over to the Senate for the Senate can act on it (kind of like nominations, the nomination technically isn’t official until it’s sent to the Senate).

        That Merit Protection Board nominee just had cloture invoked, it was a pure party-line vote (51-48). Again, not the juicy nominees we want to see but it’s good to see them taking advantage of having full attendance.

        The House also passed the minibus, so we’ll see when the Senate takes it up. Just hope to god the monkey’s paw in this doesn’t involve Senators taking off the scheduled Monday that they’re set to be in for next week if they need to stay around Friday or something to pass the minibus.

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  38. Elections, even outside just the Senate and President, have a direct relationship to the judiciary. As is news about legislation and other things in Congress. If a moderator forbids it fine, I’m not going to obey a particular busybody who regularly complains about election news here. I fully intend to discuss elections and Congressional news here.

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    • I’m right there with you Jaime. I was being nice when I said only senate races have a direct affect on judges but to be honest even the House does. The House being controlled by a majority that will not pass legislation means more time for the senate to confirm judges.

      Hell even governor races can have an affect on judges because I care about state Supreme Court’s as well. I’m fine with leaving the long rants out of the blog but to say whether Ted Cruz or Colin Allred is the junior senator from Texas doesn’t have an effect on federal judges is laughable at best.

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  39. Whitehouse wrapped up (I don’t know, there’s something about his delivery of his speeches that I like btw, he was also just coming off giving another speech in his series of speeches on all the right-wing money and influence in our courts). The Senate will vote on cloture and confirm that DC Superior Court nominee tomorrow, was actually wondering if that was going to get sidelined with the minibus vote. The resolution to escort the President to the House chamber at 9PM for tomorrow, so there should be some time in the afternoon for the Senate to take care of the minibus.

    Tomorrow’s SJC meeting should be interesting, given that we expect two of the nominees being voted on to be party-line votes. And we’ll see if Schumer files cloture on any nominees tomorrow.

    Today’s nominees will probably be listed and held over on the 3/21 meeting, and then voted on when the Senate is back from its next two week break at the 4/11 meeting, where I’d expect the nominees slated to appear at the 3/20 meeting to be held over and then voted out on 4/18.

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    • I was having dinner, but Schumer had to file cloture on the minibus, in more descriptive terms to “concur on the House amendment”, so my understanding is that the Senate-passed minibus was modified by the House before it was passed, so the Senate has to vote on that. Might be just a two-step of cloture and then passage.

      Either way, unless there’s some sped-up time agreement, might be a Friday passage since cloture was just filed today? I didn’t see any disclaimer of “Further votes possible” on the Senate Twitter feeds.

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  42. The Judiciary Committee is voting on nominees tomorrow.

    There are two nominees from Texas who could be confirmed easily. IMHO, Schumer is having difficulty rounding enough votes for four controversial nominees. Eumi Lee, Mustafa Kasubhai, and Sarah French got banged up in confirmation hearings and Republicans portrayed them as wild-eyed radicals.

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    • Your belief that Lee/Kasubhai/Russell are having trouble getting the votes is based on…what exactly? Just vibes? I can see them being party-line votes, but not sure what evidence there is suggesting that they won’t get confirmed (since they, unlike Gaston/Edelman/etc., were renominated earlier this year).

      And honestly, what is Schumer’s logic with wasting time on executive nominees that might serve for like 10 months tops at this point (and also Article I nominees like the DC Superior Court).

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      • I would argue the belief of Lee/Kasubhai/Russell being tough votes is primarily based on patterns (though there are def some vibes). Out of the 10 most recent CONFIRMED nominees that Graham opposed in committee, 5 were opposed by Manchin and all Republicans. 2 more were party line votes, 2 were unusual votes, and only 1 had the support of Collins, Murkowski, & all Dems.

        There are 3 unconfirmed circuit and 4 district nominees that were voted out by a party line vote. Judging based on Manchin’s recent patterns, we can expect him to oppose 3-4 of the 7 nominees. Sinema might also be less cooperative (though fortunately, her and Manchin have separate “algorithms” for deciding whether to support a nominee).

        If Graham’s voting patterns on Biden judges matched how I expected him to vote before there were any Biden judges, I would think Lee/Kasubhai/Russell would have no problem getting confirmed. But as 50-50 Dale Ho type votes have been a lot more common than 53-47 Rikelman type votes, it is much more likely for the 7 pending controversial nominees to need full Dem attendance.

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  43. If we get a new batch next week, I hope we get a full slate of at least six with the three weeks since the last batch. Perhaps we can get seven nominees if they include an intent to nominate for the Maldonado seat.

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      • That’s not true. Biden has had numerous intent to nominates. His very first batch had one with Florence Pan for KBJ seat. He did it as recently as September 6, 2023 with Kirk E. Sherriff for Ana de Alba who wasn’t confirmed until November 13, 2023. I can very much see him doing it for Maldonado’s seat since we have a list of recommendations for the NDIL.

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  44. SJC Meeting Vote Recap:

    -Ali was a party-line vote
    -DuBose and Harjani were 12-9 (Graham)
    -White and Yoon were 14-7 (Graham, Kennedy, Tillis)

    The non-judicial nominee votes if you’re curious:

    -Levy (MA Attorney) was a party-line vote
    -Lutzko (NDOH Attorney) was 14-7 (Graham, Cotton, Tillis)
    -Minter (SDGA Marshal) was a party-line vote
    -Carter (US Parole Commission) was 12-9 (Graham)

    Nothing unexpected, only question for me was it was a coin flip on whether or not DuBose would have been a party-line vote.

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    • Why has Lutzko to be voted out of the SJC again?

      Durbin has already tried to get her confirmed by voice vote on the floor and was always objected by her home state senator J. D. Vance.

      Is that maybe a deal with vance to send her back to the committee and he might get a voice vote for ND of Illinois nominee Perry?

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