WASHINGTON — His Senate majority may be teetering and the nation reeling from cascading crises, but Mitch McConnell is following his one true credo: Leave no judicial vacancy behind.
On Thursday, the Senate confirmed the 52nd federal appeals court judge of the Trump era to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — commonly known as the second most important court in the land — over vociferous but impotent objections from Democrats and progressive groups. The nearly party-line vote was 51-42.
The outcome was particularly sweet for Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, since the court’s newest member is 38-year-old Justin Walker, a native of Mr. McConnell’s hometown, Louisville, whom the senator first met when Mr. Walker interviewed him for a high school research paper. Mr. McConnell personally lobbied President Trump to choose Judge Walker, a former intern in his office, for the powerful job.
Next up is Cory Wilson of Mississippi, another nominee aggressively opposed by Democrats. If confirmed next week to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, he would be the 53rd circuit court judge nominated by Mr. Trump and placed on the bench under the stewardship of Mr. McConnell. Upon Judge Wilson’s confirmation, no vacancies would exist on the nation’s appeals courts, the judicial level where most of the major rulings are handed down. No vacancy would be left behind.
“It is a source of considerable satisfaction,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview about the judicial achievement.
President Barack Obama had 55 circuit court judges confirmed over eight years, underscoring the breakneck pace of the Republican effort over four. Mr. Trump has now selected more than a quarter of the nation’s federal appeals court judges.
Democrats have grown increasingly incensed at the Senate’s judicial juggernaut but are essentially powerless to stop it because of a series of rules changes that allows the majority to speed through judges if it remains united. They say Mr. McConnell’s continued focus on confirmations is even more aggravating now, since he is prioritizing judges over additional action to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, and putting the installation of hard-right ideologues over an effort to address systemic racism in policing amid a groundswell of public support for doing so.
“I would note that before we even get to a police reform proposal, the Republican leader wants to approve a circuit court nominee next week — same week we’re doing police reform, Cory Wilson — who has a record of hostility toward voting rights, a nominee who advocated baseless claims of voter fraud and called the concern over voter suppression and discrimination ‘poppycock,’” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Wednesday.
Mr. McConnell long ago became accustomed to letting such criticism roll off him. He has faced particularly personal assaults over his pressing Mr. Trump for the nomination of Judge Walker. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said Mr. Walker was getting the job solely because of his ties to Mr. McConnell. Others labeled it patronage run amok.
Remembering his history with Judge Walker, Mr. McConnell said he was asked by the boy’s grandfather, a McConnell acquaintance, to grant the student an interview for a paper he was writing on the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Mr. McConnell said he wasn’t in the habit of helping high schoolers with their homework, but made an exception for a friend.
“It was an unbelievably intelligent set of questions to the point where I said, ‘How about sending me a copy of your paper?’” Mr. McConnell recalled, saying he considered the finished product exemplary. “I thought to myself, this kid is something special.”
Mr. McConnell said he then lost touch with Mr. Walker, who went on to graduate from Duke University and Harvard Law School while also clerking at the Supreme Court and the appeals court where he will now be a judge. He then resurfaced in Louisville as a professor at the University of Louisville’s Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.
Mr. McConnell said he took note of Judge Walker’s strong and regular defense of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during the fight over his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Judge Walker had clerked for Justice Kavanaugh and was a determined ally. Mr. McConnell promoted Judge Walker for a district court slot that he was confirmed to last year — but even then, he had a higher court in mind.
“I always felt he was a circuit court person,” said Mr. McConnell, comparing him to other judges with strong academic credentials including Justice Antonin Scalia and Judge Robert H. Bork, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected in 1987 in what remains a searing experience for Mr. McConnell and other conservatives.
Democrats have pummeled both Judge Walker and Judge Wilson for hostile comments about the Affordable Care Act, saying they showed their bias against the law and that Republicans are advancing them in the hope they will help unravel judicially what Republicans have not been able to undo legislatively. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, also opposed Judge Walker’s nomination — the only member of her party to do so — saying he had been too ideologically outspoken.
Mr. McConnell dismissed those concerns as ridiculous, saying past nominees of Democrats had voiced political opinions but were still installed on the courts.
“When you are not on the bench, we haven’t repealed the First Amendment,” he said. “People are entitled to express opinions.”
He and other supporters also took issue with the idea that Judge Walker is too green for the job and said Democrats were simply worried that he would be on the bench too long.
“Somebody who is as capable, as experienced in spite of his youth and also as young as Justin Walker is able to do a lot on the D.C. circuit,” said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, who was assisted on a book project by Judge Walker before his ascension. “I suspect that is troubling to them.”
With the backlash to Mr. Trump’s handling of the pandemic, the economic upheaval and the protests over police brutality, multiple Republican Senate incumbents face re-election trouble in November, and Mr. McConnell is far from assured of holding his majority. That is yet another reason for confirming as many as judges as possible while Republicans still control the Senate.
But Mr. McConnell believes he has cemented his legacy with a conservative reshaping of the federal courts likely to far outlive him. And while Judge Walker now has a lifetime post, it might not be his last confirmation hearing if Mr. McConnell has anything to say about it.
“It is hard to predict who will end up on the Supreme Court,” the majority leader said, “but he clearly has all the credentials you want in a Supreme Court justice.”
The fact that Judge Walker is first landing on the D.C. circuit is also meaningful to Mr. McConnell, since that was the court at the center of what turned out to be a far-reaching fight with Democrats in 2013.
Frustrated with a judicial blockade engineered by Mr. McConnell as minority leader that was preventing Mr. Obama from filling openings on that court, Democrats changed the rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold, unintentionally clearing the way for the onslaught of conservative judges following the election of Mr. Trump.
The day of the 2013 showdown, Mr. McConnell warned Democrats they would regret the move someday soon. Watching Judge Walker step one rung below the Supreme Court, many Democrats probably now concede that Mr. McConnell was right.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
