The White House on Wednesday announced a trio of nominees to fill vacancies on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a move that comes after conservatives warned that the White House Counsel’s Office was attempting to cut a deal with California’s Democratic senators over picks to the court.
President Trump intends to nominate Daniel Bress, Daniel Collins, and Kenneth Lee to the San Francisco-based appeals court, considered to be the country’s most liberal, the White House announced.
Collins and Lee were tapped to fill vacancies on the 9th Circuit last year, but their nominations were returned at the end of the last Congress. Bress, meanwhile, was on the White House’s initial list of candidates for the appeals court.
The president also plans to nominate four others to federal district courts in California, including Patrick Bumatay, whom Trump nominated to the 9th Circuit last year, the White House said.
The announcement regarding the 9th Circuit nominees comes after the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board said Tuesday morning the White House Counsel’s Office, led by Pat Cipollone, was on the verge of making concessions to Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris over nominees to the court that would fill California’s three seats.
Feinstein and Harris had urged the White House last year to work with them on finding agreement on a “consensus package of nominees.”
“A concession to them now on nominees would rightly be seen as political weakness,” the Journal’s editorial board said of the two senators. “It would concede influence that neither senator has earned and set a precedent for other Democrats who would demand similar consideration.”
Democrats, the board continued, are attempting to “cajole White House concessions now because they know it will be harder to defeat nominees with 53 GOP senators.”
A number of conservatives echoed the concerns raised by the editorial board, taking to Twitter to sound the alarm.
“Sens Harris and Feinstein wrote the book on dirty politics during the Kavanaugh process & are bullying Trump’s other noms. They refused to negotiate in good faith on picking 9th circuit noms before. Why let them undermine Trump’s greatest legacy?” Carrie Severino, chief counsel of Judicial Crisis Network, tweeted.
“.@realDonaldTrump has given us an historic number of Constitutionalist judges. Why is the White House Counsel caving to @KamalaHarris?” Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, said on Twitter.
Feinstein and Harris criticized Trump’s nominees to the 9th Circuit and said they informed the White House they oppose Lee and Collins. The two senators also said they had concerns about Bress, including his residency and judicial experience.
“Unfortunately, the White House is moving forward with three nominees to a circuit court who have no judicial experience,” the senators said in a statement. “The White House’s decision to push these nominees fails to secure consensus on the circuit court.”
Confirmation of judicial nominees is considered a key achievement of the Trump presidency, with the Senate confirming 85 of his picks to the federal bench, including two to the Supreme Court.
Trump has announced nominees to fill five of the six vacancies on the 9th Circuit. If Trump fills all the empty seats on the appeals court, it would bring the balance of the court closer to parity, with 13 appointed by Republicans and 16 appointed by Democrats.
