WASHINGTON (CN) — Fifty-four days after Justin Walker fist-bumped Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the new district judge’s investiture ceremony, the 37-year-old Kentuckian is racing toward a seat on the D.C. Circuit.
Walker cleared the latest hurdle at his Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing Wednesday, one of the last steps in the Trump administration’s crusade to rapidly pull him through the judicial ranks.
Democrats argue Walker is far from worthy of the lifetime appointment to the second highest court in the land, with just six months on the district court bench under his belt.
“In his short time on the bench, Judge Walker — just 37-years-old — has had virtually none of the experience one would expect of a district court judge before elevation to the circuit,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. “He has not presided over any bench or jury trials. He has written opinions in only 12 total cases.”
But Republicans praised the nominee, citing the American Bar Association on Tuesday ranking Walker well qualified. The ABA upped its ranking after telling the Senate last year that the nominee was not qualified for his district appointment.
The nomination is clouded in controversy, with D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan on Tuesday referring a request for investigation to another circuit court over possible ethics violations by McConnell and the retiring Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, 65, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005.
The outgoing judge has denied facing political pressure to leave the bench, saying in an NPR interview on Tuesday that "the sole reason for my retirement” is his wife’s 2009 diagnoses with a "debilitating chronic illness.”
There was no mention of the pending investigation on Wednesday as Democrats focused on Walker’s position on the Affordable Care Act, while Republicans praised him for a recent ruling that blocked the city of Louisville from prohibiting drive-in church services on Easter to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Feinstein took Walker head-on with questions on his position that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was an “indefensible decision.”
The top Senate Judiciary Democrat raised concern that his appointment would “exacerbate the health care crisis in this country” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Walker said he penned the op-ed as an academic and a citizen engaged in matters of public concern.
“I understand that my role now is different than my role then,” the nominee said, later assuring the panel that he understands that the Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare is binding.
“As a judge it’s not my job to define policy. It’s my job to go where the law leads,” Walker said.
But asked by Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to commit to recusing himself from all D.C. Circuit cases involving the Affordable Care Act, Walker declined, telling the panel that judges must “take every case case-by-case with an open mind.”
Facing harsh questions over his investiture speech in March as a district judge, Walker defended his comment that "the worst words are: 'The chief justice thinks this might be a tax,'" as “a bit of a tongue and cheek” alluding to his former boss, Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Before working for Kennedy, Walker clerked for Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit prior to the newest member of the high court filling Kennedy’s vacated seat. A former assistant law professor, Walker graduated from Harvard Law School a little more than a decade ago, and attended Duke University as an undergraduate.
Democrats drilled the nominee on fiery political statements in the speech and Walker’s praise for Kavanaugh, whom he compared to St. Paul.