California federal district judge nominees get Senate confirmation

Two of President Joe Biden's least disputed California district court nominees were approved on bipartisan votes Thursday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley was confirmed 63-36 to replace U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco, while Orange County Superior Court Judge Fred W. Slaughter was backed 57-41 for a seat on the Central District of California bench.

While Republicans in the Senate have voted against Biden's nominees by overwhelming margins, they made little effort to challenge Corley - a magistrate judge since 2011 - or Slaughter, a former federal prosecutor.

Corley sailed through what has otherwise been a tricky confirmation process. She was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee 16-6, picking up the votes of five Republican senators.

The Harvard Law School graduate worked at several law firms, including Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP, and spent 11 years as a career law clerk for Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer. She is the first of Biden's Northern District nominees to be approved. Another of the president's nominees, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina L. Thompson, was approved by the committee last week.

Slaughter, who worked in U.S. attorney's offices in the Central District of California as well as Arizona and Oregon, did almost as well in the committee, getting moved along on a 15-7 vote.

He is the second of Biden's Central District nominees to be approved and is replacing U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was sworn into office last month.

California's two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, released a joint statement hailing the votes and noting that the new judges will help alleviate crowded caseloads in both districts.

"But more importantly, California is gaining two exceptional legal minds who understand the important role the judiciary plays in people's lives," the senators wrote.

Slaughter is a graduate of UCLA School of Law, which he also attended as an undergraduate.

Two of Biden's other nominees to the Central District, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Sunshine Suzanne Sykes and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, are pending following approval in the committee.

The committee was divided evenly on the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenly Kiya Kato last week. It advanced but will need a discharge petition by the full Senate to allow a final vote.

Hearings for Biden's judicial nominees have followed a predictable pattern. Republicans have focused their attention on circuit court nominees and those, like Kato, who have backgrounds as public defenders or articles they wrote in law school.

But in an evenly-divided Senate, the 48 Democrats and two independents have stuck together on judges, meaning that all of Biden's nominees have been approved even when every Republican has voted no.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will turn its attention next week to Biden's nomination of D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.