The U.S. Senate moved six Georgia federal judicial nominees forward Thursday while the controversial seventh — Michael Boggs — remains in a Democratic blockade.
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes and Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor to sit on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Four more District Court nominees will head to the Senate floor for final confirmation, perhaps in the next few weeks.
It's been a long time coming. The vacancies stretch back as far as 2009 — four are considered "judicial emergencies" — and the nominee package was the result of lengthy negotiations among White House officials and Georgia's Republican U.S. senators, who had rejected previous nominees by President Barack Obama.
But with Boggs, Obama ran into problems with his own party. Powerful Democrats and liberal groups blanched at Boggs’ voting record in his two terms as a conservative Democratic state representative from Waycross in the early 2000s. Now a state Court of Appeals judge, Boggs voted when he was in the Legislature to retain the Confederate battle emblem on the state flag and took positions on abortion and gay rights that inflamed liberals, who pressured the White House unsuccessfully to ditch Boggs.
Now committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is holding him up with further questions after a contentious committee hearing last month. Boggs issued 68 pages of written replies to post-hearing questions, but committee Democrats continue to raise concerns. Among them are photos obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showing Boggs at a fundraiser for the group Georgia Conservatives in Action that would contradict his hearing testimony that he was unaware of the group's political activities.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told the AJC on Thursday that he has not made up his mind on Boggs and is still seeking “evidence of his change in views, given that he has disavowed a number of his extreme positions” in his committee hearing.
Boggs has given no indication that he will withdraw his nomination, and the White House has stood beside him and helped him through the process. Georgia Republican U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have tried to woo the two Democrats they need — assuming a united GOP front — to move Boggs out of committee, but it’s a tall order given opposition from groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and influential U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat.
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s top Republican, made a brief pitch for Boggs at Thursday’s hearing.
“When this committee does consider Judge Boggs’ nomination, I would hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle would afford the Georgia senators the same deference with respect to that nomination as members on our side so often afford nominees,” Grassley said.
Shortly thereafter, the committee approved the two circuit court nominees as well as Leigh Martin May, an Atlanta attorney; Mark Cohen, an attorney and former chief of staff to Gov. Zell Miller; and DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross to serve on the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
In addition, the committee advanced federal prosecutor Leslie Joyce Abrams’ nomination to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court in Macon, filling an Albany-based seat. Abrams’ sister Stacey is the state House minority leader.
Ross and Abrams would be the first African-American female U.S. District Court judges in Georgia history.
Democrats had raised some quibbles with Cohen, who argued a case for Georgia’s Voter ID law, but he did so at the direction of Democratic Attorney General Thurbert Baker and no organized opposition formed to his candidacy.
Leslie Abrams was a late addition to the mix — nominated in March while the others came all together in December — but quickly gathered consensus support.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, who closely tracks the judicial nomination process, said based on the pace with which the Senate has been approving nominees lately, floor votes are likely for the Georgia nominees within the next month. Except, of course, for Boggs.
Isakson said the Senate probably needs to act on the nominees by the end of July in order for them to be confirmed at all, given the election-year calendar. Isakson said he respects the process and believes the package deal he struck has been upheld.
“Leahy has done everything that we have asked him to do,” Isakson said. “And the (Obama) administration has been terrific.”
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