Last updated on June 3, 2022
President Joseph R. Biden received committee assent Thursday to three nominations to the federal bench.
The evenly-divided Senate Committee on the Judiciary recommended confirmation of J. Michelle Childs, a federal trial judge in South Carolina, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Childs, whom Biden considered as a replacement for Justice Stephen Breyer before selecting Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, has been a U.S. District Court judge since 2010. Before her appointment to the federal bench, she was a state court judge for about four years.
Her nomination was approved, 17-5, with six of the committee’s 11 Republicans supporting Childs. Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Michael Lee of Utah, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska – all of whom have generally opposed Biden’s judicial nominees – voted “no.”
Senators on the panel also approved the nominations of Nusrat J. Choudhury and Natasha C. Merle to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Ana I. de Alba to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
All three district court nominations were sent to the floor on a 12-10 vote, with Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joining all 11 Democrats in voting “aye.”
One federal appeals court nominee – Nancy G. Abudu – received a tie vote on her nomination. Abudu, a voting rights lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, is a former associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and has also worked as a staff attorney for a federal court of appeals. She is the daughter of immigrants from Ghana.
The Senate’s majority Democrats will need to obtain a discharge of Abudu’s nomination from the Judiciary Committee before holding a floor vote on her nomination. If confirmed, she will take a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
The committee postponed votes on John Z. Lee, a federal trial court judge in Chicago, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Salvador Mendoza, Jr. to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Lee was an associate and partner at several law firms and a U.S. Department of Justice attorney before becoming a judge in 2012.
Mendoza sits on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. He was previously a state court judge and a prosecutor. Mendoza was in private practice for about 14 years. He is the son of immigrants from Mexico.
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