WASHINGTON (CN) — A monthslong Republican campaign against the Biden administration’s nominee for a vacancy on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals appears to be bearing fruit, as a top Senate Democrat acknowledged this week that the prospective jurist may not have the votes for confirmation.
Republicans have since December waged an all-out assault on Adeel Mangi, a private practice litigator tapped by the White House for the federal appellate bench. They've pointed to the nominee’s ties to a controversial university research program and a reform-minded criminal justice advocacy organization.
During Mangi’s confirmation hearing, lawmakers bristled at his work with Rutgers University’s Center for Security, Race and Rights, where he served as a member of the program’s advisory board. Republicans pointed to several events held by the center, including one featuring an academic scholar who was convicted of providing financial support to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Mangi distanced himself from the program at the time, pointing out that he only met once annually with the advisory board and discussed areas of academic focus. Democrats jumped to the nominee’s defense, arguing that he should not be judged for the actions or statements of others.
The Judiciary Committee advanced Mangi’s nomination to the Senate floor in January on a party-line vote
Since then, Republicans have also called out Mangi’s role as an advisory board member at the New York-based Alliance of Families for Justice, which advocated against mass incarceration and which lawmakers have suggested supports releasing people imprisoned for killing police officers.
Although Republicans have long scrutinized past affiliations and records of President Biden’s court nominees, their criticism of Mangi has been particularly virulent, spreading uncertainty even among Senate Democrats.
CNN reported last week that some Democrats had warned the White House that Mangi’s nomination may not have the votes needed in the upper chamber to confirm him to the bench, and Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto became the first Democrat to publicly come out against the nominee on Wednesday.
Other Senate Democrats have been cagey about whether they would support Mangi, whose nomination has yet to be scheduled for a floor vote.
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, who faces a tough race in November’s elections, told Courthouse News on Wednesday that he was “looking at” the nominee but declined to say whether he would offer his support.
Montana Senator John Tester, a similarly vulnerable Democrat who along with Casey has faced a pressure campaign from conservative legal activist group the Judicial Crisis Network to abandon Mangi’s nomination, has said that he is still weighing his options.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who ran as a Democrat but recently announced she will not seek reelection, declined to comment on whether she would vote for Mangi. Sinema’s office did not return a request for further comment.
Adding to the swirling uncertainty, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Wednesday that he was unsure whether Mangi’s nomination currently has enough votes to clear the chamber. Durbin, who also chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was currently whipping votes but declined to elaborate on who he was negotiating with.
The apparent success of the Republican pressure campaign against Mangi comes even as some experts and the White House have decried lawmakers’ attacks as tenuous and rooted in Islamophobia — the nominee would be the first Muslim-American jurist to serve on the Third Circuit.
“I think it’s incredibly unfortunate and really reprehensible,” said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law. “What Republicans are trying to do is just outrageous.”
Tobias argued that “no one doubts” Mangi is well-qualified to be a federal judge and that efforts to impugn his character are “as cheap as it gets.”
The final test for Mangi’s nomination will have to come when the Senate brings him up for a floor vote, the professor said, but he forecast that it “won’t be pretty.”
“It would be a loss for the federal bench,” Tobias said, “and it would be a loss for Mangi who is, I think, a decent person. I keep thinking we are going to reach the bottom, but it doesn’t happen.”
Sahar Aziz, who heads the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights, said in a statement Tuesday that she was “not surprised at the extent to which anti-Muslim stereotypes are peddled so openly by some of our elected officials.”
“Had similar treatment been directed at other minority communities, it would rightfully be called antithetical to American values of equality and religious pluralism,” she wrote.
The White House has similarly defended Mangi and accused Republicans of trafficking in Islamophobia — calling the GOP assault on his credibility “vile, unconscionable smears.”
As of Wednesday, the Senate had yet to plan a floor vote for Mangi’s nomination.
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