As Senate advances Fourth Circuit nominee, Tillis threatens to burn down the house

WASHINGTON (CN) — North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis — who for months has said he has the votes to sink a controversial appellate court nominee for his state — may soon have to put his money where his mouth is, as the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced the White House appointee to the full chamber.

But if the Tar Heel State’s senior senator does indeed hold the cards he needs to block confirmation of Fourth Circuit nominee Ryan Park, it would deny Democrats a key circuit court appointment as they scramble to fill as many vacancies as possible before President-elect Donald Trump retakes the Oval Office.

It was a party-line vote in Thursday’s Judiciary Committee business meeting that sent Park on his way to a final ballot before the full Senate. The panel voted 11-10 to advance the nominee, selected in July by the Biden administration, with every Republican member voting against him.

The staunch GOP opposition to Park’s nomination is thanks in large part to Tillis, who for months has rained fury on the White House for what he has framed as an unfair nomination process which left North Carolina’s Senate delegation without a say on a nominee who, if confirmed, will have jurisdiction over cases in their home state.

“The White House legislative counsel proved to be absolutely incompetent in this process,” Tillis told his colleagues as they prepared to vote on Park.

Rehashing months of complaints about White House consultation, the senator said that the administration had given the North Carolina senators a list of four potential nominees. One of those candidates, he claimed, had previously challenged North Carolina’s junior Senator Ted Budd for his seat and was “patently partisan.”

A spokesperson for Tillis’ office confirmed that he was referring to Cheri Beasley, former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court who ran against Budd in 2022.

“They think that’s a serious list for me to choose from?” Tillis fumed. His own list of potential nominees was rejected by the White House, he added: “They said, ‘Not only are they not fit for the Fourth Circuit, but we wouldn’t even consider them for a district court.’”

The White House, however, has in recent months challenged Tillis’ retelling of events. A senior administration official told Courthouse News in September that the White House had gone above and beyond to accommodate the North Carolina senators — but the lawmakers had slow-walked the process, repeatedly rejecting potential candidates and insisting on having sole control over the appellate nominee.

Tillis and Budd also demanded that the administration allow an independent commission to review candidates, but none of Biden’s nominees ever got such a review, White House officials said.

By contrast, the administration reviewed four candidates supplied by the North Carolina senators, a source with knowledge of the process told Courthouse News Thursday. The lawmakers suggested, among other potential nominees, two former law clerks for a Republican-appointed Supreme Court justice and a GOP U.S. district court appointee.

But the White House raised several concerns with the North Carolina senators’ candidates related to ideology, personal and professional diversity and precedents set by other, similar negotiations with Republican lawmakers, the source said. And once the administration settled on Park, it worked with Tillis and Budd over the course of ten weeks — giving the lawmakers interviews with the nominee and providing them with written materials addressing potential conflicts.

The only pre-nomination issue the senators raised was that Park had insufficient ties to North Carolina and that he was solicitor general under Josh Stein, the Tar Heel state’s former Democratic attorney general and governor-elect, the source said. But the White House argued that neither of those concerns had any merit — Park moved to North Carolina in 2017, and as solicitor general he represented the state’s interests, not Stein’s.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chair, defended the administration, pointing out that the White House interviewed every candidate the North Carolina senators brought forward. The Biden administration, he added, also agreed to delay Park’s nomination until the judicial selection commission could finish its work.

Those accommodations, Durbin said, were far beyond anything offered to Democrats under the first Trump administration and the former president’s approach to nominations “established a new floor” for consulting with home state senators.

But Tillis was unconvinced.

“I couldn’t care less about what the White House has to say,” he told Courthouse News following the Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday. He compared the administration to a “used car salesman,” arguing they put forward candidates like Beasley to make other potential nominees look better.

The North Carolina senator has for months claimed that he has whipped enough Democratic votes to sink Park’s confirmation on the Senate floor. But while he doubled down on that promise as the Judiciary Committee advanced the nominee, he again refused to say exactly who he had courted to break with Democrats.

“If Schumer brings it to the floor, he’ll know,” Tillis told reporters. “The only way Ryan Park gets confirmed is if Schumer waits for someone to have a funeral or a reason to be out.”

And the Tar Heel State senator warned that he would be “instructed” by Democrats’ behavior going forward, suggesting that he would no longer reach across the aisle on judicial nominees.

“Elections and votes have consequences, and they’re about to see the consequences on this one,” Tillis said. “They want to see the bad side of me? They’re about to see it.”

A White House spokesperson defended Park’s nomination in a statement Thursday, telling Courthouse News that the nominee had been endorsed by stakeholders across the political and ideological spectrum.

“This experienced and widely supported nominee was only selected by President Biden after an extensive consultation process with both of North Carolina’s senators — one that far exceeded level of consultation afforded to Senate Democrats by the prior administration,” the spokesperson said. “Obstructing Mr. Park’s nomination — which is strongly backed by law enforcement — is costing the people of North Carolina by undermining the ability to hear criminal cases in a timely manner.”

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