3 nominees to federal court in LA advance to full Senate

On partisan lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance the nominations of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges Michelle Williams Court and Anne Hwang, as well as State Bar Court Judge Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon to vacancies on the Central District of California.

The nominations will now move to the Senate floor.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, the committee's ranking Republican who sometimes votes for President Joe Biden's judicial nominees, voted against all of them. He supported several other nominees who were considered Thursday morning. The votes on the Central District nominees were 11-10, with all the Democratic senators voting in favor and Republicans in opposition.

Court, supervising judge of the court's civil division, has been on the state court bench since Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her in 2012. The Loyola Law School graduate previously worked as an attorney, vice president and general counsel of Bet Tzedek Legal Services between 2002 and 2011 and is a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer.

Hwang, appointed to the state court bench by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, is a former federal public defender in Los Angeles who previously worked as an associate at Irell & Manella LLP and graduated from USC Gould School of Law in 2002.

Valenzuela Dixon -- a 1995 graduate of UCLA School of Law -- was appointed as a State Bar Court judge in 2016 by the state Supreme Court, and previously worked as a supervising attorney for the Central District, as national head of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 2006 through 2011 and as a federal prosecutor.

She was the only one of the three nominees who faced any skeptical questions from committee Republicans during her nomination hearing in May. Graham and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, queried Valenzuela Dixon about her role at MALDEF and some of the cases the organization handled.

Carl W. Tobias, a professor at University of Richmond School of Law, said he believed all three nominees would be confirmed even if they do not get any Republican support, including occasional swing voters such as U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-WV, said earlier this year that he would not support any nominee that does not get a single Republican vote.

But despite those possible hurdles, Tobias said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, has an important advantage: control of the calendar. He can schedule votes at inconvenient times when a few Republican senators have not returned to Washington, D.C.

Tobias said he expects more than a few "bed check votes" on Monday nights, often when many senators have not returned. Schumer also has the advantage of being able to continue to hold votes during the lame duck session, regardless of who wins the presidential election.

Of Court, Hwang, and Valenzuela Dixon, he said: "It's just a matter of getting them on the calendar. I think it will be close but not that close."

The primary focus of Thursday's hearing was Biden's nomination of U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn for a vacancy on the Southern District of New York. As they had done during her May nomination hearing, Senate Republicans blasted Netburn for recommending that a transgender inmate be transferred from a men's prison to a women's prison. The inmate was previously imprisoned for raping a young boy and a teenage girl and was back in prison for possessing images of children being molested. Netburn wrote a 70-page defense of her decision justifying her order to move the inmate to a women's prison.

The judiciary committee rejected Netburn in a rare rejection by the judiciary committee of a Biden nominee. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-GA, joined the committee's 10 Republicans in voting against her.

On Wednesday, the judiciary committee questioned Alameda County Superior Court Judge Noel Wise. Several Republicans grilled her about articles she has written - in The Atlantic, Time, and the Daily Journal - about the importance of diversity on the federal bench, gender identity of babies that are born with gender irregularities that also discussed bathroom bills aimed at transgender children, and the right of judges to participate in protests.

Barring absences, the judiciary committee will likely approve Wise's nomination before senators leave for their summer recess, Tobias said. A final Senate floor vote on Wise is not expected until after Labor Day.

No nomination hearing has been scheduled yet for San Diego County Superior Court Judge Rebecca S. Kanter, a longtime federal prosecutor who was nominated in January for a vacancy on the Southern District of California.

Biden has yet to nominate anyone to fill the seats of Senior U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of San Diego, who took senior status last September; and former U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney of Santa Ana, who retired in May.