The trial court selections sent to the Senate floor were Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP partner Anna M. Manasco for the Northern District of Alabama, state Judge John L. Badalamenti for the Middle District of Florida and Hall Estill Hardwick Gable Golden & Nelson PC shareholder John F. Heil for a roving seat serving the Northern, Eastern and Western Districts of Oklahoma.
The committee also signed off on Kirkland & Ellis LLP veteran Edward H. Meyers for the Court of Federal Claims. All four nominees received unanimous support from Republicans plus four or five of the panel's 12 Democrats.
The votes took place without Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, or a staff member representing him, because he has closed his office and quarantined himself after contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Florida nominee, Judge Badalamenti, advanced on a 15-6 vote.
The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said that Judge Badalamenti would "bring a unique and valuable perspective to the bench," having nearly a decade of experience as a federal public defender. In that position, he argued appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit, in addition to representing clients at the district court level.
The judge previously worked at Carlton Fields in St. Petersburg, Florida, after clerkships with Eleventh Circuit Judges Paul H. Roney and Frank Mays Hull. He earned his law degree from the University of Florida's Levin College of Law and his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida. The American Bar Association's evaluation panel gave him its top rating of "well-qualified."
The Alabama pick, Manasco, also received a 15-6 vote.
Democrats supported her partly because she has the backing of the state's Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, Feinstein said. She is relatively young for a judicial nominee at age 39 but has civil experience with both trials and appeals to the Supreme Court.
Manasco's firm, Bradley Arant, has seen four partners or alums tapped for the federal judiciary in three years. She clerked with Eleventh Circuit Judge William H. Pryor Jr. after earning her law degree from Yale Law School and her bachelor's degree from Emory University. The ABA gave her its middle rating of "qualified."
The Oklahoma nominee, Heil, received one additional Democratic vote for a 16-5 tally.
Before entering private practice, Heil served as a prosecutor with the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office after receiving his law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law and his bachelor's degree from Oklahoma State University. The ABA panel unanimously rated him "well-qualified."
Heil was tapped for the seat after a 2018 nominee from the same firm, John M. O'Connor, fizzled following a "not qualified" rating from the ABA's evaluation panel. O'Connor languished after the group said peers questioned his integrity, including "evidence of overbilling" and "an improper ex parte communication with a court." O'Connor eventually withdrew from consideration.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told the Tulsa World that the Trump administration also sought a younger candidate likely to serve longer on the bench. Heil is 14 years younger than O'Connor.
The Federal Claims pick, Meyers, received a 15-6 vote.
The Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP partner litigates bid protests, breach-of-contract disputes and copyright infringement. He worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP until 2012. Meyers clerked with Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith after earning his law degree from the Catholic University of America and his bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University.
Votes were postponed for other nominees, including BakerHostetler partner Drew B. Tipton for the Southern District of Texas, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC shareholder William Scott Hardy for the Western District of Pennsylvania, U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph for the Western District of Louisiana and Federal Claims picks Kathryn C. Davis and Schaerr Jaffe LLP partner Stephen Schwartz.
Senior Democrats on the committee zeroed in on Schwartz, a long-pending pick who made it out of the committee in 2017 but never received a confirmation vote on the Senate floor. Nominations generally expire between sessions of Congress, so Schwartz needed a fresh nomination and new committee consideration.
"Mr. Schwartz is not admitted to the Court of Federal Claims and has never argued a case before it," Feinstein said. "Instead he has spent his brief legal career — he graduated from law school in 2008 and began practicing in 2009 — arguing in favor of laws that limit women's reproductive freedoms, restrict voting rights and target LGBT Americans for who they are."
Feinstein pointed to Schwartz's work defending a North Carolina voter ID law that was found to unconstitutionally target black voters with nearly "surgical precision."
President Donald Trump has tapped two other lawyers who defended the voter ID law: Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan and North Carolina pick Thomas Farr, whose nomination failed in 2018 after a few GOP senators opposed him over his record on race and voting rights.
Feinstein also cited Schwartz's college writings that called public benefits including Social Security "part of the problem" for poor people.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that the 36-year-old's "only qualification appears to be a formidable track record of disenfranchising the rights of the vulnerable." The former committee chairman said Schwartz exemplifies the "conveyor belt of extreme right-wing nominees who are woefully unprepared for the bench [and makes] clear the president does not view the judiciary as an independent branch but as an extension of his power."
Law360 is tracking Trump's judicial nominations from the White House to the Senate to the federal bench.
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
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