Biden nominates Sacramento County judge for seat on Eastern District

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Dena M. Coggins to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Eastern District of California court, but his pace of picking judges continues to frustrate his Democratic allies.

The president has not chosen anyone to fill two California district judge positions, even though Senior U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of San Diego took senior status five months ago. Senior U.S. District Judge George H. Wu of Los Angeles, an appointee of President George W. Bush, took senior status in November.

Biden is trying to fill as many judicial vacancies as possible while gearing up for a rematch with former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, in the November election. The U.S. Senate, now under narrow Democratic control, also hangs in the balance. The combination of a partisan Senate, with few Republicans willing to cross party lines for Biden’s nominees unless they were consulted in choosing them, the president’s own slow pace in choosing judges, and growing skittishness about forcing Democratic senators in close reelection campaigns to make tough votes this year, has kept the process slow.

For much of his term, Biden and his supporters bragged about the record number of judges they were getting confirmed, as well as their diversity in terms of race, gender and professional backgrounds. But in recent months, the president has dropped behind the pace not only of Trump but also other recent presidents, including President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton.

Even though choosing judges should be less complicated in California, because both senators are Democrats and will not veto Biden’s picks in the blue slip process, it hasn’t been smooth sailing. Last month, Biden decided against renominating San Diego County Superior Court Judge Marian F. Gaston, a former public defender who faced barbed criticism from Senate Republicans over a 2008 article she cowrote criticizing residency restrictions for sex offenders.

Instead, Biden picked San Diego County Superior Court Judge Rebecca S. Kanter, a longtime prosecutor whose selection prompted some grumbling from Biden’s allies, to fill another Southern District vacancy that was created after Senior U.S. District Judge William Q. Hayes, a Bush appointee, took senior status in August 2021.

“It’s an election year,” said one attorney involved with assisting the Biden White House to choose judges and asked not to be identified. “It’s very difficult at this point.”

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Eumi K. Lee, nominated for a vacancy on the Northern District of California bench, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month but has not had a floor vote scheduled. She is unlikely to get much, if any, Republican support based on her judiciary committee approval, which was an 11-10 partisan vote.

Three other California district judges — U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer and Chief Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, both Bush appointees in the Central District; and U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila of the Northern District, an Obama appointee — have also informed Biden they will be taking senior status this year.

The president’s task of filling seats on the Eastern District, which has one of the highest caseloads in the nation and only six active Article III judges responsible for a region that stretches from Kern County to the Oregon border, has proved easier. One of his Eastern District appointees, Ana I. de Alba, was elevated last year to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Coggins, who is presiding judge of juvenile court in Sacramento County, was picked to fill the position being vacated in September by Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller of Sacramento. The nomination of Coggins, a Black woman who graduated from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 2006, should increase the odds that the overworked Eastern District won’t have a vacancy by the time Mueller takes senior status.

She is a former associate at Downey Brand LLP and Morrison & Foerster LLP who was a deputy legal secretary for Gov. Jerry Brown and an administrative law judge for the state’s special education division and later with the general administrative division before Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her to the Sacramento County bench in 2021.

U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-CA, hailed the nomination in a statement.

“As one of our state’s leading experts on juvenile law, Judge Coggins will bring her expertise and lived experience to the federal bench to ensure the judicial system delivers equal justice for all,” she wrote. “I look forward to her swift confirmation.”

While there has been speculation that Biden would get to appoint another 9th Circuit judge, there have been no vacancies. He has gotten eight appellate judges confirmed to replace judges appointed by past Democratic presidents who took senior status or, in the case of former Judge Paul J. Watford, an appointee of President Barack Obama, resigned to join Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC as a partner.

There has been speculation that one or more of the three appointees of President Bill Clinton also would take senior status but none of them — Judge Ronald M. Gould, 77; Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson, 71; and Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, 69 — has done so.

“It’s getting late,” said another attorney who has been involved in Biden’s selection process.

But Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said in an email that it’s not too late, noting that judges in three other circuits announced they were taking senior status in recent weeks.

“Moreover, Biden is committed to filling the maximum number of vacancies and the Senate will hold a lame duck session after the election to fill vacancies, as it did in 2022,” he wrote. “As a practical matter, it would be difficult to confirm a circuit judge who lacks nomination before the summer recess with few exceptions.”

The Senate, then controlled by Republicans, confirmed a number of Trump’s judicial nominees during the lame duck session in 2020 after he lost the election to Biden.

The 9th Circuit has 16 judges appointed by Democratic presidents and 13 by Republican presidents. The partisan breakdown of the court is the same as when Biden took office in 2021.