Democrats are making every effort to pack the judiciary with radical ideologues. While Joe Biden hasn’t shaped the makeup of the Supreme Court as much as President Donald Trump did, according to the Daily Signal, “Biden is on track to match and possibly surpass his predecessor in successfully appointing lower court judges.” In addition, in recent years Democrats have poured millions into electing radical judges at the state level.
RNLA will host a webinar this Friday, April 26, at 2:00 p.m. ET exploring these issues with Carrie Severino, President of Judicial Crisis Network, and Andrew Wynne, Vice President of the Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI) at the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC).
Click here to register for the webinar.
Federal Judicial Nominees
Severino will update us on the status of Biden’s current nominees, including some of the most troubling ones: Adeel Mangi, Kevin Ritz, Nancy Maldonado, and Sparkle Sooknanan.
Ritz, nominated to serve on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and currently the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, received tough questioning at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-M0) about allegations of ethical misconduct while representing the United States in United States v. Von Rico Webber.
As reflected in this exchange with Hawley, Mr. Ritz was accused of making a representation to defense counsel that induced her to recommend that her client accept a guilty plea. When the client ultimately faced a much more serious sentence than contemplated, the defense attorney raised the issue to the court. Ultimately, the court took the unusual step of allowing defense counsel to withdraw and allowing the defendant to withdraw the guilty plea. Mr. Ritz appears to have been removed from the case. Mr. Ritz denied the allegations.
Biden’s Sixth Circuit judge nominee Kevin Gifford Ritz tried to dodge repeated questions from Senator Hawley about a previous ethics complaint filed against him: https://t.co/soBYhUo6aR
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) April 18, 2024
Senators also questioned Ritz about a 2009 email that Stephen Shankman (the then-Federal Public Defender for the Western District) sent to dozens of defense attorneys alleging that Mr. Ritz had an “unfortunate pattern of behavior” regarding misrepresentations to defense attorneys. Mr. Shankman wrote, “It is unfortunate that this is not the first, second, third or whatever occasion that this sort of thing has occurred.”
The Committee voted to report Maldonado and Sooknanan out of Committee, both of whom were opposed by all Committee Republicans.
Also of note, opposition to Adeel Mangi’s nomination to the Third Circuit continues to grow as his nomination lingers on life-support. Most recently, the AFL-CIO chartered International Union of Police Associations sent a letter opposing Mangi’s nomination. A broad coalition to oppose Mangi’s nomination continues to grow and even includes three Senate Democrats. Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Graham has publicly called on President Biden to withdraw the nomination.
State Judicial Races
RSLC’s Andrew Wynne will focus his remarks on key state judicial races, which frequently fly under the radar. Their Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI) notes that these state judges increasingly play an oversized role in important issues like redistricting. Democrats have spent millions installing liberal activist judges on state-level courts who will take their side on redistricting.
On a recent RSLC podcast, Wynne said, “Too often during these types of races, voters simply are left in the dark. The candidates themselves don’t have the resources or the platforms to share with voters information that’s important in the decision-making process. And [we] research the history and the decisions of those judges and candidates for office and share with voters the important information that they need when it comes time to making their decision for whom to vote.
“I was frankly surprised by just how much money Democrats trial lawyers and labor unions were willing to spend on these races to elect their preferred candidates,” Wynne added. He said he expects more Democrat and special interest money to be engaged in these races to elect the kind of liberal activist judges who will put their thumbs on the scales to benefit Democrats.
Hear directly from Severino and Wynne at this week’s RNLA Webinar on Friday, April 26, at 2 p.m. ET.