Tammy Baldwin urges Donald Trump to withdraw Gordon Giampietro judicial nomination

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Tuesday that she won't support federal judicial nominee Gordon Giampietro and urged President Donald Trump to consider other candidates.

Giampietro was nominated for federal judge in the state's Eastern District. But the move sparked heated debate because of comments he made in a blog and two radio interviews about diversity, same-sex relationships and birth control.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and judicial nominee Gordon Giampietro.

During a meeting Monday night in Milwaukee, Baldwin told Giampietro that she will not support his nomination and will withhold her blue slip from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the past, home state senators have been able to stop lower-court nominees by refusing to return a blue slip to the committee.

But under Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of Michael Brennan for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago, even though Baldwin didn't hand in a blue slip.

In a letter to the White House, Baldwin suggested the Trump administration consider the other candidates recommended by Wisconsin's Federal Nominating Commission.

Those candidates are Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Aprahamian, and Milwaukee County Circuit Judges Kevin Martens and Richard Sankovitz.

Giampietro, a former federal prosecutor who is currently an assistant general counsel at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., was nominated to replace conservative U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, who died in 2016 after more than two decades on the bench.

Supporters of Giampietro have said they believe the criticisms leveled against him have to do with his Catholic faith. Wisconsin's five bishops and the New York-based Catholic League have written to Baldwin asking her not to block Giampietro's confirmation.

Groups opposed to Giampietro include Lambda Legal, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Human Rights Campaign, Alliance for Justice, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and People For the American Way.

In her letter to Trump, Baldwin said Giampietro failed to disclose past statements to the nominating commission "which call into question his ability to serve as an independent, fair and impartial jurist who will respect precedent."

She cited comments Giampietro made during a Milwaukee radio interview in which he criticized a U.S. Supreme Court decision and Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion on same-sex marriage.

Giampietro said the opinion should be disregarded because "it's not really legal reasoning" and said the justice had "gone off the rails" years earlier.

"This statement and others like it cast doubt on his respect for precedent, and were clearly pronouncements on legal issues that Mr. Giampietro should have disclosed to the Nominating Commission," Baldwin wrote.

Baldwin raised another issue.

"Since his nomination, I have also been contacted by several judges, attorneys and other individuals with personal or professional experience with Mr. Giampietro who have expressed grave reservations about his qualifications and temperament to serve as a federal judge," she wrote.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Baldwin provided "bogus" reasons for blocking the nomination. He said the state commission did not ask for media appearances but that a questionnaire he completed for the Senate Judiciary Committee did, and Giampietro complied.

"Of course, her initial opposition, I hate to say it but let's say it plainly, I fear is because he's a person of faith. On top of it, now she's smearing a really good man," Johnson said.

Johnson said the state commissioners would not vote for someone who did not have the respect of the wider legal community.

"And now Senator Baldwin in her letter is using anonymous sources to smear a good person. I find that to be despicable, quite honestly," he said.

Baldwin's move was harshly criticized by Rick Esenberg, a commission member and the head of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

"She's seems to be imposing a religious test for judicial office," Esenberg said, adding that Giampietro did not mislead the commission.

"She argues that he would somehow not be fair to gay and lesbian litigants," Esenberg said. "I don't think there is any evidence that would be the case."

A Baldwin spokesman responded: “Three of the four individuals that Senator Baldwin sent to the White House for this nomination self identified themselves as Catholic, so the claim that she objects to this nominee based on his religion is a completely false political attack."