Trump swaps Eighth Circuit nominee in last-ditch court bid
President Donald Trump has withdrawn one of his judicial nominees and replaced him with another candidate, in a last-ditch effort to fill a key seat on a United States appeals court before Democrats take control of the Senate.
The White House said on Tuesday that Mr Trump had rescinded the nomination of Arkansas-based US District Judge Lee Rudofsky to the St Louis-based Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals, and instead nominated Arkansas Supreme Court Justice J. Cody Hiland for the seat.
Race against the Senate handover
The White House and Senate Republicans are racing to confirm as many new judges as possible before Democrats take control of the Senate in January, after winning at least 54 seats in the midterm elections on 3 November. Mr Trump urged the Senate on Monday to confirm 25 federal judges before the handover.
Mr Rudofsky, whom Mr Trump appointed as a federal district judge in Little Rock in 2019, had been nominated for the appeals court in August. But his prospects dimmed after the election, when reports emerged that Arkansas' two Republican senators, John Boozman and Tom Cotton, favoured someone else for the seat.
Senators backed Hiland
Justice Hiland has served on Arkansas' top state court since 2023. At an event at a law school in Arkansas in August, he said he had expected to receive the appeals court nomination but was instead offered a federal district judgeship, which he turned down.
If confirmed, Justice Hiland would succeed Judge Bobby Shepherd, who announced plans to retire earlier this year. The Eighth Circuit hears cases from federal courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, and his confirmation would mean 10 of its 11 active judges were appointed by Republican presidents, six of them by Mr Trump.
Judge Rudofsky said in a statement that without the support of his home-state senators, confirmation was “simply not a practical possibility in today's Senate”, adding that he would be forever grateful to President Trump for the honour of the nomination.
