A late-night deal struck by Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will leave open a seat on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals for the incoming Trump administration, ending Nashville attorney Karla Campbell’s brief path to a powerful federal judgeship.
In June, President Joe Biden nominated Campbell, a labor lawyer at Stranch Jennings & Garvey PLLC, for the seat. Senate Democrats advanced Campbell through a contentious Senate hearing over the summer. A narrow 11-10 majority helped move Campbell’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee along party lines on Aug. 1. Schumer’s deal leaves Campbell without a final floor vote, securing the vacancy for the incoming Republican administration.
President names Nashville attorney to fill seat on 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
After law school, Campbell clerked for Jane Branstetter Stranch, the judge who vacated the seat currently open on the 6th Circuit. Her nomination received public backing from civil rights and education advocacy groups.
Senate Democrats traded Campbell’s seat along with three other circuit court nominees — all lifetime appointments — for Republican cooperation in confirming up to 13 additional district court judges before the GOP takes control of the chamber. Below the United States Supreme Court, the federal judiciary is split into 12 regional circuit courts that hear appeals from district courts. Tennessee is split into three district courts: East, Middle and West. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals takes cases from all district courts in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.
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Republican senators have agreed to abandon certain procedural hurdles they had previously used to slow down the confirmation process, giving Schumer enough runway to confirm some, but not all, of Biden’s judicial nominees. A spokesperson for Schumer says Democrats did not have the floor votes to confirm the four circuit court nominees, including Campbell.
Campbell’s hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee provoked conservative U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn, John Kennedy and Ted Cruz into hostile lines of questioning that bordered on personal attacks. Blackburn, the sole Tennessee senator on the committee, denied having been offered preliminary interviewing privileges customary for the senator of a nominee’s home state. Campbell insisted she had been screened by Blackburn’s office. Cruz spent much of his allotted time grilling Campbell on past involvement with local nonprofit Workers’ Dignity, a labor center off Nolensville Road.
