From The New York Times
Obama to Nominate 3 to Fill Posts on Key Appeals Court
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Published: June 3, 2013
From left: Cornelia Pillard, Patricia Millett and Robert L. Wilkins
President Obama will nominate a slate of three candidates on Tuesday to fill the remaining vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a White House official said Monday.
The president will name Cornelia T. L. Pillard, a law professor; Patricia Ann Millett, an appellate lawyer; and Robert L. Wilkins, a federal district judge, to fill out the appeals court, which is often described as the second most powerful court in the country because it decides major cases and often serves as a launching pad for future Supreme Court justices.
By making his choices in a group, the president and his strategists are hoping to put pressure on Senate Republicans to confirm them.
Mr. Obama is expected to announce the nominations at a Rose Garden ceremony on Tuesday morning, said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the nominations had not been announced.
The president’s choices for the 11-member court had been expected by legal experts, who had pushed Mr. Obama to fill the vacancies in an effort to bring ideological balance to the court. The court currently has four Democratic appointees and four Republican appointees. But of the six additional senior judges, who previously served full time on the court and still regularly hear cases, five were appointed by a Republican president, giving the court a strongly conservative flavor.
Mr. Obama’s nominees are likely to become part of a larger fight with Republicans over the president’s judicial nominees and Republican attempts to use the filibuster to block his picks.
Posts
