Trump starts to fill Texas court vacancies
Five nominees named for first of 13 judgeships
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday five nominees to begin filling a swath of vacancies in the Texas federal courts.
Right now 13 of the state’s federal judgeships are vacant — a quarter of the total — including two seats on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the Southern District of Texas, which includes Houston, Trump has nominated Fernando Rodriguez Jr. to serve as a district judge. A former partner at Baker Botts in Dallas, Rodriguez currently works in the Dominican Republic, leading efforts to fight sex trafficking criminals targeting children for the nonprofit International Justice Mission.
The openings in Texas and beyond represent an opportunity for Trump to remake the federal bench in a more conservative mold. On Thursday the White House announced 16 appointments in all, including his own deputy counsel, Gregory G. Katsas, who was appointed a circuit judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Federal judges serve lifetime appointments. And with the abolition of the Senate filibuster for district and appeals court judges, Trump only needs the votes of Republicans to confirm his picks.
‘A new generation’
From immigration to voting rights and social legislation, court watchers see a sea change coming in the federal courts, even if Trump doesn’t make it to a second term.
On Thursday Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, praised the nominees as “accomplished” attorneys with “fidelity to the U.S. Constitution.”
“The last few years have demonstrated that our country desperately needs a new generation of jurists who are willing and able to defend the rule of law, and I believe that these five Texas nominees bring us one step closer to that goal,” he said in a statement.
In July a leaked email from the Department of Justice said former state District Judge Ryan Patrick — the son of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — has been selected to be the new U.S. attorney nominee for the Southern District. But no announcement on that position was made Thursday.
Other nominees
Outside of the Southern District, Trump nominated Walter David Counts III, a U.S. magistrate judge in West Texas, to serve as a U.S. district judge for the Western District of Texas; Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, deputy general counsel to the non-profit First Liberty Institute, to serve as a U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Texas; Jeff Mateer, first assistant attorney general of Texas, to serve as U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Texas; and Karen Gren Scholer, co-managing partner in the Dallas law firm of Carter Scholer, to serve as a U.S. district judge in the Northern District of Texas.
Mateer also spent part of his career at the Planobased First Liverty Institute, a conservative law firm that specializes in religious liberty litigation. Both Mateer and Kacsmaryk are known as fierce defenders of public religious expression.