WASHINGTON (CN) - The Senate on Thursday confirmed 15 of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees, including three to federal appeals courts.
Many of the nominees senators sent to the federal bench on Thursday evening received at least some bipartisan support, though several were controversial.
The Senate confirmed Third Circuit nominee David Porter 50-45, even though Porter did not receiving the approval of Senator Bob Casey, D-Pa., who said the White House chose Porter for the vacancy despite Casey making his objections to his nomination clear.
Under the tradition known as the blue slip, home-state senators have in the past been asked to sign off on a nominee before he or she receives a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has said, however, that he will no longer allow a single senator to hold up the nomination of a circuit court judge, whose rulings will impact multiple states.
Casey announced his opposition to Porter on the day Trump announced he intended to nominate the Pittsburgh attorney to the vacancy, calling Porter "outside the mainstream" of legal thought.
Porter has worked at the Pittsburgh firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney since 1994, starting as an associate and rising to the position of shareholder in 2002.
Porter faced questions during his nomination process about articles he wrote commenting on the Supreme Court case that challenged the federal health care law's individual mandate.
Porter wrote the justices should strike down the provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that required most people purchase health insurance and later wrote that the court's 5-4 decision upholding individual mandate "sits uneasily with the law's history, structure and text."
Porter told senators during his nomination hearing he wrote the opinion pieces as a lawyer giving his personal view of a live legal dispute and that he would have no problem following the court's precedent if confirmed to the Third Circuit.
"Lawyers who aren't judicial nominees are free to make comment, lawyers who are nominees are not so much at liberty to make comment," Porter said at his nomination hearing in June. "And there's a difference between, you know, giving advice and taking orders and in that instance I gave my advice and if confirmed it would be my turn to take orders."
Porter earned confirmation in a 50-45 vote that broke along party lines, with Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., not voting on any of the nominees confirmed Thursday.
Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., praised Porter in a statement Thursday, citing his reputation in Pennsylvania.
"I am confident that with his extensive experience and commitment to treating everyone fairly under the law, Mr. Porter will make a terrific addition to the Third Circuit bench," Toomey said.
“David Porter’s published works reveal an ideology that will serve only the wealthy and powerful as opposed to protecting the rights of all Americans," Casey said in a statement after Porter's confirmation." "His record indicates that workers, families and everyday Pennsylvanians will be worse off with him on the bench.”
Ninth Circuit nominee Ryan Nelson earned one more vote than Porter did on Thursday, receiving confirmation 51-44.
Nelson has worked as general counsel at wellness products company Melaleuca since 2009 and was nominated last year to serve as solicitor for the Department of the Interior.