The Senate confirmed Kentucky Judge Justin Walker to the powerful D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday. Walker delivered the first ruling in favor of a church amid coronavirus shutdown orders.
Walker, who was confirmed in a 51-42 vote, was praised on the Senate floor by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a “widely admired legal expert and proven judge.” Walker had previously served in the Western District of Kentucky for less than a year and clerked for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh while he was on the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Several days before Easter, Walker made headlines when he granted several churches a restraining order on Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer’s stay-at-home order that banned drive-in services.
“The Mayor’s decision is stunning,” Walker wrote at the time. “And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”
Like many other advocates for opening churches, Walker wrote that if liquor stores and grocery stores were considered essential, church services should be, too.
“If beer is ‘essential,’ so is Easter,” he wrote.
Since that decision, many other judges, the Justice Department, and President Trump have insisted that churches be allowed to hold drive-in services, and as the pandemic wore on, that churches be allowed to meet in person.
Walker’s confirmation process was fraught, particularly because he had defended Kavanaugh against allegations of sexual assault during his 2018 confirmation hearing. At the time, Walker said that as a former clerk to Kavanaugh, he believed the justice had not acted improperly.
