WASHINGTON (CN) — The mood was relatively subdued in the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, as lawmakers subjected the White House’s latest slate of federal court nominees to only a brief round of questioning.
The upper chamber’s judicial affairs panel met to consider four appointees to federal district courts including Sanket Bulsara, nominated to the Eastern District of New York, and Dena Coggins, nominated to the Eastern District of California.
Lawmakers also heard testimony from Eric Schulte and Camela Theeler, tapped by President Biden to fill two vacancies on the District of South Dakota.
Schulte and Theeler both enjoy the support of the Mount Rushmore state’s two Republican senators, part of an ongoing effort between the GOP, Senate Democrats and the White House to cooperate on consensus candidates for much-needed judicial appointments in red states.
Senator John Thune, who joined the Judiciary Committee Wednesday to introduce the South Dakota nominees, offered his endorsement, telling his colleagues that the prospective jurists “have the character and impartiality to serve lifetime appointments on the federal bench.”
Senator Mike Rounds concurred, adding that Schulte and Theeler are “undoubtedly qualified” for the federal judiciary.
Schulte is currently an attorney at South Dakota law firm Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz and Smith LLP and was president of the state bar from 2015 to 2016. He is also a self-described “amateur poet” and a member of the Academy of American Poets.
“It relaxes me — it stimulates my mind,” Schulte told Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono.
Theeler, meanwhile, serves as a judge on South Dakota’s state circuit court, a position she has held since 2018. Before that, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of South Dakota and was also a partner at the law firm Lynn, Jackson, Schultz and Lebrun.
Schulte, Theeler and the other nominees faced only limited questioning from lawmakers.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican ranking member, asked the appointees to weigh in on efforts by Congress to rein in social media companies and stem what lawmakers see as their platforms’ detrimental effects on children.
The nominees largely deferred to lawmakers on policy matters but acknowledged that social media use had played a role in cases they had overseen or litigated involving young people.
Coggins, who currently serves as presiding judge at the Juvenile Court of the Superior Court of California, told Graham that she had seen concerns about “criminal activity occurring and posted on social media.”
Bulsara, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York, said that he had presided over child pornography cases in which social media had similarly been a vehicle for criminal activity.
The committee’s Democratic contingent also lobbed some softballs at the nominees, asking Bulsara about his more than 2,000 hours of pro bono legal service and Coggins about her experience working in California’s juvenile trauma response court, which she said worked to treat troubled youth and prevent recidivism.
However, there were a few pointed questions from Republican lawmakers.
Louisiana Senator John Kennedy grilled Coggins about her work as deputy legal affairs secretary to former California Governor Jerry Brown from 2013 to 2015. The lawmaker attempted to draw a connection between what he framed as the nominee’s work advising Brown on parole approvals and the 2015 parole of James Schoenfeld, convicted in 1976 for the kidnapping of 26 schoolchildren.
Coggins said she was unfamiliar with the case and pointed out that she was not responsible for advising the governor on when to grant parole but instead provided background information on “the nature and circumstances of the particular case that was before us.”
“I did not make recommendations,” she told the committee. “He made the ultimate decision on those cases.”
The nominee resisted further pressing by Kennedy, who asked whether Coggins believed that paroling Schoenfeld, who was 63 in 2015, posed an unreasonable risk to public safety.
“I certainly believe that if the individual was convicted of those crimes, which it sounds like he was, he would be a risk to the community,” Coggins said, again clarifying that she had not reviewed the case file in question.
Utah Senator Mike Lee pushed Bulsara on his membership of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, demanding he answer for a 2017 statement from the organization supporting sanctuary jurisdictions — states, cities or other government entities that refuse to honor federal detainment requests for undocumented immigrants.
Bulsara distanced himself from that statement, telling the Utah Republican that the association has more than 100,000 members.
“I’m not an officer or director,” he said. “I’m certainly not familiar with the class of statements that you’re addressing, or any press releases to that effect, and I’ve never read any public statement on these particular items that you’ve identified.”
Bulsara also declined to comment on statements from the bar association opposing 2023 legislation that, if made law, would bar trans women from participating in school athletic programs. The nominee argued that he may be required to preside over cases involving the measure’s subject matter, pointing to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York by Long Island’s Nassau County seeking to uphold its own transgender sports ban.
Lee was unconvinced by Bulsara’s reasoning.
“If you’re going to belong to an organization that engages in advocacy, you can’t have it both ways,” he told the nominee. “You can’t say ‘I know nothing about that’ and then decline to say anything about it and still belong to that organization. I think you have got to answer the question.”
Despite those minor Republican roadblocks, the four nominees who went before the Judiciary Committee Wednesday are likely to be approved, said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond’s School of Law.
“All four nominees are very experienced and seem to be mainstream nominees,” he said. “They provided clear and comprehensive answers to most questions that members asked.”
Tobias predicted that all would “rather easily” secure the committee’s endorsement and that they would be smoothly confirmed by the full Senate.
The Biden administration has so far confirmed more than 180 federal judges. With November’s presidential election fast approaching, the White House appears on track to meet or even surpass the Trump administration’s 234 appointments.
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