California federal judge nominees to be confirmed in bipartisan deal

Democratic and Republican senators are believed to have reached an agreement to facilitate the confirmation of three California district court nominees selected by President Joe Biden. However, the final confirmation votes are not expected until after Thanksgiving.

The Senate voted Wednesday night and Thursday morning to cut off debate on the nominations of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Anne Hwang and State Bar Court Judge Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon for vacancies on the Central District of California; and Alameda County Superior Court Judge Noel Wise for a Northern District of California position.

The cloture votes were all close. Hwang prevailed on a 51-48 vote, with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, crossing partisan lines to vote for her. No Republican voted for Valenzuela Dixon or Wise, who won a 50-49 vote.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-WV, did not vote on any of the nominations. Vice President Kamala Harris, who might have been needed to cast a tiebreaking vote, was out of town on vacation.

News media reports said a deal was struck between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Republican Leader John Thune, R-SD, which cleared the logjam between Democrats - who held late-night votes to approve Biden's nominees earlier this week - and the GOP, which slowed down the process with procedural moves.

Republicans are due to take over the Senate on Jan. 3, and the White House on Jan. 20 with the victory of President-elect Donald Trump and a GOP majority. Democrats still have narrow but precarious control of the Senate during the lame duck session.

Schumer's key concession was giving up on trying to confirm Biden's four federal appellate court nominees, none of whom are slated for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

In exchange, Republicans allowed an undetermined number of Biden's district court nominees to move forward without throwing up extra procedural roadblocks, the sources indicated. The beneficiaries included Hwang, Valenzuela Dixon and Wise.

It was not clear Thursday whether two of Biden's other California district court nominees - U.S. Magistrate Judge Benjamin J. Cheeks, nominated for a Southern District of California vacancy; and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Serena R. Murillo, picked for a Central District position - are included in the deal.

Cheeks and Murillo still must be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee before they are considered by the full Senate.

The fate of the nomination of San Diego County Superior Court Judge Rebecca S. Kanter, who has not been considered by the judiciary committee even though she was named by Biden in January, is increasingly doubtful. She may simply run out of time, assuming Democrats are pushing for her nomination at this point.

A representative of Schumer, quoted in several publications, characterized the deal as cost-free because none of Biden's circuit court nominees had the votes for confirmation, presumably because they lacked some Democratic votes or the support of independent senators such as Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

"The trade was four circuit nominees -- all lacking the votes to get confirmed -- for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward," a representative of Schumer was quoted as saying.

Circuit court judges are more significant, one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, than district judges - but Schumer and other Senate Democratic leaders appear to have accepted the agreement.

Carl W. Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, wrote in an email Thursday afternoon that it was "unclear why the Democrats gave in, but [their] staff said the four circuit nominees lacked votes."

Two circuit court judges - 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jane B. Stranch and 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James A. Wynn Jr., both appointees of President Barack Obama - took senior status pending confirmation of their successors.

It is possible they could change their minds about taking senior status, as other judges have done in the past, if the reported deal means their replacements will not be confirmed before Jan. 3.

Schumer, who as majority leader controls the Senate calendar and can call votes when he chooses, took advantage of that power Monday to call votes to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Embry J. Kidd to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and district court nominees while several Republican senators were not around.

Trump expressed outrage and demanded that Republicans oppose Biden's nominees.

"The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left judges on their way out the door," he wrote Tuesday. "Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line - No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!"

Republicans - including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Trump's choice for secretary of state, Marco Rubio - all showed up Wednesday night and Thursday, as did Senate Democrats.

The Senate has confirmed several district court judges this week, including Rebecca L. Pennell to a vacancy on the Eastern District of Washington on Wednesday and Sharad H. Desai to the District of Arizona on Thursday afternoon.

Hwang, appointed to the state court bench in 2019 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, previously worked for a dozen years as a federal public defender in the Central District and, before that, as an associate at Irell & Manella LLP. She graduated from USC Gould School of Law in 2002.

Valenzuela Dixon, a 1995 graduate of UCLA School of Law, was national head of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund from 2006 to 2011 and was appointed as a State Bar judge in 2016 by the California Supreme Court.

Wise, a 1993 graduate of Nova Southeastern Law School, is a former trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in its environmental and natural resources division. She later worked for two years as an in-house counsel for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., started her own firm, and was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014.