Senate panel clears way for full vote on state’s district judge
WASHINGTON — By a 12-10 party line vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to confirm Lee Rudofsky as a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The Bentonville attorney’s nomination was “reported favorably” to the Senate floor. Republicans voted “yes”; Democrats voted “no.”
He now awaits a confirmation vote by the full Senate.
Rudofsky, a New York native, was one of three nominees Thursday who faced united Democratic opposition. Three others were approved by votes of 19-3. The three “no” votes were cast by proxy on behalf of three absent Democratic presidential candidates: U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.
Afterward, Arkansas Republicans on Capitol Hill welcomed Thursday’s vote.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Rogers called Rudofsky “very well-qualified and is highly-respected within legal circles.”
“I am confident that Lee will be a fair and thoughtful jurist who will interpret the laws as they are written. I look forward to voting to confirm him to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas,” Boozman said in a written statement.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Dardanelle also approved.
“Lee Rudofsky’s strong record of serving Arkansans and fighting corruption makes him an outstanding choice to serve as district court judge,” he said in a written statement. “Now that he’s won the support of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I urge the Senate to move to vote for his final confirmation.”
A Harvard Law School graduate, Rudofsky worked for the Kirkland & Ellis law firm in Washington, D.C., before moving to Northwest Arkansas in January 2014.
Originally hired by Walmart Inc. as an assistant general counsel, Rudofsky joined the staff of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge in August 2015. After three years as the state’s solicitor general, he returned to Walmart, this time serving as senior director of its global anti-corruption compliance team.
Prior to Thursday’s vote, two Democratic members, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Dick Durbin of Illinois, questioned his fitness to receive a lifetime judicial appointment.
Rudofsky’s record as Arkansas solicitor general is “very concerning,” Feinstein said.
“He argued in favor of a restrictive voter ID law and against a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions,” Feinstein added.
Rudofsky had previously defended his handling of the cases, arguing that he was zealously defending laws that had been approved by the people of Arkansas. He emphasized that he would respect U.S. Supreme Court precedent on abortion and other matters.
Thursday, Feinstein also accused Rudofsky of backtracking on same-sex marriage.
“While Mr. Rudofsky had joined two [legal] briefs in his personal capacity, in support of marriage equality, he renounced his prior support on the rights of same-sex couples during his confirmation hearings,” she said.
That disavowal, Feinstein said, “puts him out of step with the Supreme Court.”
During his July 31 confirmation hearing, Rudofsky distanced himself from a February 2013 friend-of-thecourt brief he had signed that challenged California’s Proposition 8, a ballot measure that had stripped gay couples there of the right to marry.
Rudofsky also withdrew his support for a March 2015 amicus brief challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans. (Amicus curiae is Latin for “friend of the court.”)
“Those were not when I was solicitor general. I did not sign those as a lawyer. Those were signed in my personal capacity,” he told the committee earlier this year. “When I joined those amicus briefs, I was not an expert in 14th Amendment jurisprudence. Since then, as solicitor general, I’ve become much more familiar with that area of law and I have to say, if I had it to do over again, as a legal matter, I would not have signed those briefs.”
Rudofsky’s answer drew criticism Thursday from Durbin.
“Why didn’t he do his homework [before signing the briefs] if he wants to be a federal court judge?” Durbin said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It certainly raises a question about his judgment.”
While rejecting the legal rationale contained in the 2013 and 2015 briefs, Rudofsky had previously promised that he would abide by U.S. Supreme Court precedent concerning marriage.
In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court sided with marriage equality advocates. The 2015 ruling states, “The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.”
Republican committee members didn’t argue with Feinstein and Durbin before casting their votes.
After Thursday’s hearing, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., predicted Rudofsky would faithfully follow the law and ably perform the duties of a U.S. district court judge.