Two of President Trump’s federal appeals court nominees survived Senate Judiciary Committee votes Thursday along partisan lines.
The Judiciary Committee voted 11-9 to send Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid’s 10th Circuit nomination and Stephanos Bibas’ 3rd Circuit nomination to the full Senate. Eid is seeking to fill the vacancy created by Justice Neil Gorsuch’s addition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley praised both Eid and Bibas before voting to support the two nominees. Grassley noted Eid’s journey from being raised by a single mother to the Colorado Supreme Court and Bibas’ writings as a law professor that Grassley noted are “frequently cited by the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals.”
Grassley also complained about his Democratic counterparts’ opposition to Trump’s female judicial nominees at recent hearings.
“In the past two markups, we’ve reported out three excellent and well-qualified women to the circuit courts. I was disheartened that my colleagues on the other side voted against the two female nominees last week,” Grassley said Thursday. “When Republicans voted against female circuit court nominees in 2013, Democrats called it ‘unjust.’ I won’t do that here to my friends, but I also don’t want to see a double standard for qualified female nominees from different presidents.
Senate Democrats explained their opposition to Eid and Bibas’ nominations on Thursday by pointing to Eid’s similarities to Gorsuch and Bibas’ legal writings.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee’s top-ranking Democrat, noted Eid’s inclusion on Trump’s Supreme Court shortlists and similarities to Gorsuch in her reasoning for voting against Eid’s nomination.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin spoke against Bibas and pointed to his legal writings Durbin said showed Bibas favored electrical shock treatments but not waterboarding as legal enhanced interrogation techniques.
“My fellow colleagues, this man is outside the mainstream of American legal thinking; I believe he’s outside the mainstream of conservative political thinking,” Durbin said. “Please, before you vote to give this professor a lifetime appointment to the second highest court in the land, read what he has written and ask yourself the honest question, Democrat or Republican: Seriously? Are we going to vote this man into this position? I’m voting no.”
Moments after Durbin’s complaints, the Judiciary Committee voted yes and advanced both federal appeals court nominees.
