U.S. Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch is planning to step down from active service on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday, giving President Joe Biden a new vacancy he can fill on the Cincinnati-based court.
Stranch, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, plans to take senior status upon the confirmation of a successor, the person said, opening up a new seat on court that hears appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee and already has three judges named by Biden.
Stranch, 70, did not respond to requests for comment.
Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for judges over the age of 65 who have completed at least 15 years on the federal bench. Presidents may name new full-time judges to fill those judges' seats.
The 16-member court is dominated by 10 judges appointed by Republican presidents. Six others were named by Democrats and include Biden's three appointees to the court to date, U.S. Circuit Judges Stephanie Davis, Andre Mathis and Rachel Bloomekatz.
The president has yet to nominate someone to fill the seat of U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush who in August said she would take senior status once a successor was confirmed.
Both Gibbons and Stranch hail from Tennessee, a state with two Republican senators who had objected strongly to Mathis' nomination, which was the last Biden put forward to fill a vacancy from their state, and how the White House selected him.
One of the senators, Marsha Blackburn, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, complained that the White House went with an "unqualified" nominee over an alternative candidate she backed without meaningfully consulting her or Senator Bill Hagerty.
While under current Senate custom so-called "blue slips" from home-state senators are not required for circuit court nominees to be considered, Blackburn's opposition helped complicate Mathis' confirmation.
Before joining the federal bench, Stranch was a member of Branstetter Stranch & Jennings in Nashville, where she was also a managing partner, with a practice focused on labor and employee benefit matters.
Obama nominated her to a seat on the 6th Circuit, and the Senate confirmed her in September 2010 on a 71–21 vote.
Her notable rulings include a majority opinion she wrote in December 2021 for a 2-1 panel reinstating a vaccine-or-testing COVID-19 mandate for large businesses that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under Biden had issued.
"It is difficult to imagine what more OSHA could do or rely on to justify its finding that workers face a grave danger in the workplace," Stranch wrote.
But the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in January 2022 blocked the rule, and OSHA withdrew the requirement later that month.
Read more:
Biden gains 6th Circuit vacancy to fill as Gibbons takes senior status
U.S. Senate confirms Biden appellate judge pick opposed by home state senators
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