U.S. Senate panel advances Childs' nomination to key D.C. appeals court

(Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel on Thursday advanced U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs' nomination to serve on the influential federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. on a bipartisan vote, while deadlocking on a civil rights lawyer up for a different appellate court position.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 17-5 to clear the way for the full Senate to consider Childs for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after President Joe Biden decided against nominating her to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Six Republicans backed her including Senator Lindsey Graham, from her home state of South Carolina, who said she is somebody who "would not been chosen by a conservative Republican but, in my view, is somebody highly qualified to do the job."

Graham has said he would have supported Biden nominating Childs to succeed retiring liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Biden considered her, but instead picked Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed last month.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the panel's ranking Republican, called her "as good of a pick as we could expect." The former state court judge was nominated by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, to her current district court role and confirmed in 2010.

Grassley contrasted her with several other "activist" nominees up for votes including Nancy Abudu, a voting rights advocate with the Southern Poverty Law Center nominated to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The panel tied 11-11 on her nomination, which means she will face an additional procedural hurdle as the Senate must vote to discharge her nomination from the committee before any final vote.

Republicans during a hearing last month sharply questioned Abudu about the SPLC's inclusion of prominent conservative groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom on its well-known annual list of hate groups.

Abudu, who joined SPLC in 2019 from the American Civil Liberties Union, said she had no role in its profiling of groups and that racial justice and voting rights were the "focus of my work."

On Thursday, the panel also advanced three district court picks on 12-10 votes, with Graham crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats on two nominees to the Eastern District of New York who Grassley also labeled as "activist."

Those were Nusrat Choudhury, currently the legal director of the ACLU of Illinois, and Natasha Merle, the deputy director of litigation at the civil rights organization NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The panel also advanced Fresno County Superior Court Judge Ana Isabel de Alba to serve in the Eastern District of California.

(NOTE: This story has been updated with the full name of the D.C. Circuit in the second paragraph.)

Read more:

Judge Childs, onetime Supreme Court contender, garners support for appellate role

Republicans' bid for 'unusual' 2nd hearing on Biden judicial pick rejected

Biden considers Judge J. Michelle Childs, among others, for Supreme Court

Biden nominates 2 appellate judges, including Supreme Court contender

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.