Politics
Obama nominates 3 to US appeals court- challenges Republicans to approve his picks
Although Obama also has gotten some victories from the D.C. circuit, which upheld his health care law and his administration’s rule on greenhouse gas emissions, he was stymied in his attempts to add his own nominees to its bench until two weeks ago. Obama’s first offering, Caitlin Halligan, waited 2-1/2 years before withdrawing her nomination in March, with Republicans blocking a vote on her confirmation.
Obama’s second nominee – Sri Srinivasan, who had bipartisan credentials after arguing appeals for both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations — won confirmation May 23.
With Srinivasan’s confirmation, the circuit now has four Democratic appointees and four Republican appointees among the active judges. But another six senior judges on semi-retired status regularly hear cases, and five of those were nominated by Republican presidents.
Obama’s three new nominees – two white women and a black man – contribute to a White House commitment to bring diversity to the federal bench historically dominated by white men. All three are graduates of Obama’s alma mater, Harvard Law School.
Pillard is an experienced Supreme Court litigator who worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund before joining the solicitor general’s office in 1994. She left to join the faculty at Georgetown in 1997, but returned for two years at the Justice Department at the end of the Clinton administration. She still appears before the Supreme Court from her position at Georgetown.
Millet worked with Pillard in the solicitor general’s office beginning in 1996, but stayed through most of the Bush administration before leaving in 2007 to join private practice. Millet has argued cases in nearly every federal appeals court and appeared 32 times before the Supreme Court, the second-highest number of high court appearances of any female attorney. She’s currently a partner at the Washington firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, where she heads the firm’s Supreme Court practice.
Wilkins has been a federal judge since 2010, when the Senate approved Obama’s nomination of him to the U.S. District Court in Washington. He was a public defender in Washington before helping to establish the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and then going to work for nine years in private practice.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
