Groh, Fitzgerald Confirmed to District Court Seats

Yesterday the Senate confirmed Judge Gina Marie Groh to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 95 to 2 and Michael Fitzgerald to a seat on the United States District Court for the Central District of California by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 91-6.

Groh, who since 2006 has been serving as a judge on the 23rd Judicial Circuit Court of West Virginia, was nominated to the District Court on May 19, 2011. On October 6, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported her nomination to the full Senate on a unanimous voice vote.  Groh waited 162 days following her committee vote for the full Senate to consider her nomination; 302 days have passed since she was nominated to fill the seat.

Fitzgerald, a partner at Corbin, Fitzgerald & Athey LLP in Los Angeles, was nominated on July 20, 2011.  He is the third openly gay Obama judicial appointee to be confirmed to serve on the federal bench.  Fitzgerald was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a unanimous voice vote on November 3, 2011, but was still forced to wait 134 more days for the Senate to confirm him to fill his emergency vacancy seat; his wait time from nomination to confirmation was 240 days.

Yesterday's votes were the first two in a Senate deal struck to hold confirmation votes on 14 judicial nominees by May 7.  With 100 current and future judicial vacancies on the federal bench, it is vital that the Senate continue to take action to confirm judges and ensure Americans access to a fully staffed judiciary when they turn to the courts seeking justice.

For the most up-to-date information on judicial vacancies and nominations, see the Alliance for Justice Judicial Selection Project webpage.

Mind your own business, Senator Lee

Two judicial nominees in West Virginia have fallen victim to the knee-jerk obstruction of a senator from thousands of miles away.

In an op-ed for the Charleston Gazette, AFJ President Nan Aron takes a look at the nominees and the senator standing in their way:

I'm willing to bet that people in West Virginia, like most Americans, have never heard of Mike Lee. He's the junior U.S. Senator from Utah, and has been in office for all of two years. Yet, he has decided all by himself that West Virginia can't have new federal judges.

He's mad at President Obama, so he's throwing a legislative fit and has vowed to block all of the president's appointments to the federal courts, including two from West Virginia...

President Obama, working closely with Senators Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, has appointed Gina Groh from Charles Town to fill a seat on the U.S. District Court, and Stephanie Dawn Thacker from Charleston to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. These are highly qualified individuals with impeccable records and are fully representative of West Virginia values. They have bipartisan support and were unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Click here to read the rest of Nan's column.

Wallach, Four District Court Nominees Voted Out of Committee

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee voted five judicial nominees out of committee in a unanimous, en banc vote, moving them forward to the full Senate for confirmation. The nominees are Evan Wallach, nominated to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Federal Circuit, and four United States District Judge nominees: Dana Christensen to the District of Montana, Cathy Bencivengo to the Southern District of California, Gina Marie Groh to the Northern District of West Virginia, and Margo Brodie to the Eastern District of New York.  They now join 21 other pending nominees awaiting confirmation by the Senate.

Consideration of all five had been “held over” by Republicans at the last meeting of the Committee.  Holding over nominees, even when there is no opposition to their appointment, has been a consistent tactic by Republican senators seeking to slow down the judicial confirmation process. This tactic was continued at the Committee today, with Republican ranking member Sen. Grassley (R-IA) automatically holding over the nominations of Adalberto José Jordán to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and District Judge nominees John M. Gerrard, Mary Elizabeth Phillips, Thomas Owen Rice, and David Nuffer to the District of Nebraska, the Western District of Missouri, the Eastern District of Washington, and the District of Utah, respectively.

Both Jordán and Nuffer have been appointed to fill vacancies designated as “judicial emergencies” by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.  Also automatically held over was consideration of S.1014, Emergency Judicial Relief Act, a bipartisan bill that would establish ten new judgeships in parts of the country where courts are overloaded because the bench is woefully understaffed.

Rather than playing delaying games in an attempt to keep President Obama’s nominees off the bench, Republicans in the Senate should be moving with all speed to ensure that these vacancies are filled so that people seeking justice in the courts of our nation can be heard.

For the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on judicial nominations, see the Alliance for Justice’s Judicial Selection Project webpage.