A New Year means new arguments! On January 17, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc v. Department of Commerce. Ahead of these arguments, AFJ President Rakim Brooks will be joining United for Democracy and other partnering organizations for a rally at the Supreme Court starting at 9am ET on January 17.
The paired cases involve challenges to a federal rule that would require fishing companies to pay the salaries of third-party observers on certain boats there to help prevent overfishing. In Loper Bright, companies sued the agency, arguing that the National Marine Fisheries Service did not have the power to make industry bear the costs.
The cases center on Supreme Court precedent known as the Chevron doctrine. Good law since 1984, Chevron requires courts to defer to agency expertise when it comes to implementing legislation in the absence of clear congressional guidance. If the justices overturn Chevron—as champions of big business and opponents of regulation hope—individual judges across the country would be empowered to ignore federal agency expertise. Such a decision would upend decades of administrative law, transforming the way complex policy decisions are made and jeopardizing protections for our health and safety.
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As of Wednesday, the Biden Administration had already renominated 22 candidates to the federal bench and had already announced 6 new judicial nominees, including a civil rights lawyer and two history-making picks! Alliance for Justice applauds the administration for moving quickly: It will take 66 more judicial confirmations over the course of 2024 to overtake the prior administration’s record. Kicking off the year by backing 28 judicial nominees lays the groundwork to get us more than a third of the way to our goal.
Noteworthy renominations include Nicole Berner to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Adeel Mangi to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Professor Berner will be the first openly LGBTQ+ judge to serve on the Fourth Circuit while Mr. Mangi will be the first Muslim to serve as a federal appellate court judge ever. Judge Kasubhai, meanwhile, stands to make history as the first Muslim to serve on Oregon’s federal district court and the third Muslim to serve as a federal district court judge in the United States. Both Professor Berner and Judge Kasubhai have extensive experience in labor law—an area of expertise woefully underrepresented in the federal judiciary.
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The newest slate of judicial nominees from the administration includes Amir Ali (D.D.C.), Judge Melissa R. DuBose (D.R.I.), Judge Sunhil Harjani (N.D. Ill.), Judge Rebecca S. Kanter (S.D. Cal.), Robert J. White (E.D. Mich.), and Jasmine H. Yoon (W.D. Va.). A civil rights lawyer and President of the Mac Arthur Justice Center, Amir Ali also teaches at Harvard and the University of the District of Columbia and has litigated three cases before the Supreme Court. Judge DuBose will be the first person of color to serve on the federal district court for the District of Rhode Island while Ms. Yoon will be the first person of color to serve on the bench in the western district of Virginia. As Judge DuBose is also a member of the LGTBQ community, she will enrich the demographic and experiential diversity of the federal bench in several senses. With each historic nomination, we get closer to our goal of building a stronger, more diverse federal judiciary—and further from a norm that includes all-white district court benches.
Thanks to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, we also saw the confirmations of John Kazen, to the Southern District of Texas, and Judge Kato Crews, to the District of Colorado, this week.
While the Senate has made great progress in nominating and confirming highly qualified and diverse judicial nominees, nearly 90 vacancies remain unfilled—and 57 of these vacancies do not yet have nominees. With the average time from nomination to confirmation taking roughly eight months, there’s no time to waste: The Biden Administration must keep up the pace when it comes to judicial nominations—as well as the quality of nominee! |
In the eighth season of Slow Burn, Joel dives into the life of Justice Thomas. From Thomas’s upbringing in Georgia to his “rebellious” college days and journey through federal government to the Supreme Court, Joel leaves no stone unturned. Listeners will appreciate how skillfully Joel combines in-depth analysis with primary sources, like interviews—including one with Justice Thomas’s mother! AFJ President Rakim H.D. Brooks will be directing the discussion around Justice Thomas and what Joel learned through his reporting.
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