President Joe Biden on Thursday announced four new judicial nominees, including a sitting judge's daughter who would serve on the same U.S. appeals court.
They include two new federal appeals courts nominees, Julia Lipez, a Maine state court judge for the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Tennessee lawyer Karla Campbell, who is up for a seat on the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The new nominations came a day after the Senate gave Biden his 201st confirmed judicial nominee, a number that outpaces his Republican predecessor Donald Trump's court appointments at the same point in his presidency.
Those nominees have included 42 confirmed appointments to the nation's 13 federal appeals courts. Another four circuit court nominees are pending in the Senate.
Both of Thursday's appellate court nominees have links to judges on the courts to which they were nominated to join.
Lipez, a superior court judge in Augusta, Maine, is the daughter of a Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez on the 1st Circuit, which hears appeals from Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.
She was nominated to fill a seat on the Democratic-appointee dominated 1st Circuit that opened up when U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta said he was taking takes senior status, a form of semi-retirement.
Campbell is a former clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch and has been nominated to succeed her, after Stranch decided to step down from active service upon the confirmation of a successor.
Campbell today works as a labor lawyer at Nashville law firm Stranch Jennings & Garvey, which last year spun out of the judge's prior law firm, Branstetter Stranch & Jennings. Stranch's husband and daughter also practice at that law firm.
She is Biden's third nominee to a Tennessee seat on the 6th Circuit. The state's two Republican senators including Senate Judiciary Committee member Marsha Blackburn have opposed both of Biden's prior nominees, saying the White House picked them over their objections and without sufficient consultation.
Blackburn on Thursday raised similar objections about the level of consultation, saying "this is yet another backroom deal that the White House cut to put Judge Stranch’s former law clerk in her seat."
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a statement responded: "Consultation is not a veto. For the 6th Circuit, as for every other red state circuit vacancy, the White House has both raised multiple names for the senators' consideration and has given due consideration to names raised by the senators."
Thursday's nominees also included two public defenders picked to serve as district court judges: Catherine Henry, who would if confirmed serve in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Mary Kay Lanthier, a nominee to serve in Vermont.
Read more:
US Senate cements all-Democratic appointed bench on 1st Circuit
6th Circuit's Stranch to take senior status, creating court vacancy
1st Circuit's Kayatta to retire as active judge, giving Biden new vacancy
