Biden Fourth Circuit Pick Ryan Park Advances Amid GOP Ire (1)

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved President Joe Biden’s pick for a North Carolina seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as the state’s Republican senators threaten to sink the nomination.

Ryan Park’s nomination advanced, 11-10, without GOP support Thursday after Committeeman Thom Tillis (RN.C.) lashed out again over the White House scrutinizing the Raleigh seat.

Tillis said he and fellow North Carolina Republican Sen. Ted Budd put forward four potential candidates, including a judge with a Democratic background, but that the White House rejected all the choices.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the administration conducted a “comprehensive consultation process” with Tillis and Budd.

The nomination of Park, North Carolina’s attorney general, now heads to the Senate floor, where Democrats are racing to confirm as many of Biden’s remaining judicial picks as possible before the clock runs out on their majority in January. Park is among more than two dozen pending nominations for district and circuit courts.

The Senate also voted 49-44 on Thursday to invoke cloture, or end debate on Embry Kidd’s nomination to the Eleventh Circuit. A confirmation vote was scheduled for November 18.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) also filed cloture motions to end the trial selection debate, which has drawn conservative scrutiny. They include Mustafa Kasubhai for the District of Oregon, Sarah Russell for the District of Connecticut and Rebecca Pennell for the Eastern District of Washington.

Democrats had pulled the procedural vote on Kasubhai in June because of attendance issues amid their narrow majority.

Competing narratives

Unlike district court elections, circuit court elections do not need the support of the home state senator to advance to the floor. Some Republican senators have openly complained about White House consultations on appellate nominations.

Tillis, who said Park has “no prayer” to be confirmed in absentia with a lack of Republican votes when he comes up for consideration, expressed displeasure with the White House process earlier this year.

He revived the matter Thursday, just before the committee voted on Park. Tillis said after the White House rejected the potential nominees, he moved forward with Budd, then the administration forwarded four of its own names. The list included Budd’s Democratic Senate challenger in 2022, Cheri Beasley, who was formerly the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, according to Tillis.

Bates said the White House hearing “far exceeded” what was given to Democrats during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, when Senate Republicans dropped the home state legislature’s “blue slip” approval practice for appellate elections. It allowed Trump to appoint judges in states with two Democratic senators, regardless of whether they approved the president’s pick or not.

A source familiar with the process behind Park’s nomination said the White House began its consultation with Republican senators starting in January, when Judge James Wynn announced his plans to go into semi-retirement. That was until July 3, when the White House announced Park’s nomination.

The process included forwarding his own picks to the senators and interviewing and reviewing the candidates the two Republicans put forward, according to the source.

The White House also agreed to delay the process for Tillis and Budd to create a new judicial selection commission in February, one that would recommend candidates for the vacancy.

That’s despite “no such commission had been used to fill the vacancy in the Fourth Circuit that occurred during the previous administration.” The commission did not interview candidates raised by the White House, the source said.

When asked about the competing narratives after the vote, Tillis told reporters he “couldn’t care less what the White House has to say” after fielding Budd’s 2022 Democratic challenger as the nominee.

Floor dynamics

Tillis would not reveal to reporters the names of colleagues he believes will reject Park’s nomination because if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) “brings it to the floor, he will know.”

“That’s all that matters to me,” he later added.

Democrats control the chamber 51-49. Sen. Joe Manchin (IW.Va.) previously vowed to vote against nominees who do not have Republican support. But he told reporters Wednesday that he has withdrawn that decision and will instead look at whether some nominees would get bipartisan support under normal circumstances but not because of election-year politics. He voted against Kidd’s cloture vote Thursday.

Trump has demanded that Senate Republicans not allow Democrats to “blow through” any longer Biden judicial choices since he won the Nov. 5 election.

Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who this week backed Trump against Biden judicial confirmations, each voted no to promoting Kidd.