Alaska’s U.S. District Court should have three judges to hear cases but for more than year it has had just one. Now, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said there’s been progress, despite an ongoing rift between between her and Sen. Dan Sullivan about how to screen applicants.
The senators have forwarded two lists of names to the White House, Murkowski said.
“The White House has confirmed with us that they have interviewed those names," she said.
By tradition, U.S. senators play a big role in who will serve as federal judges in their states. They typically forward a list of their preferred applicants to the White House for nomination and then the Senate holds hearings and a confirmation vote.
But nomination to fill Alaska’s court vacancies stalled as Murkowski and Sullivan disagreed on a selection process.
Murkowski stuck with the vetting system Alaska senators have used since her father was in Congress. It features a Bar poll, asking Alaska attorneys and judges to rate each applicant’s qualifications.
Sullivan, though, appointed his own committee to screen applicants in a private process. He didn’t respond to an interview request this week but said at the state Capitol this spring that his advisory commission is a better system.
“One bar poll is not a reflective of what's out there, in my view," he told reporters in March. "And I feel very strongly about that.”
Both senators have disavowed former federal judge Joshua Kindred, who resigned last year amid a sex scandal. Trump nominated Kindred in 2019 — to praise from both Alaska senators — even though he finished at nearly the bottom of the Bar poll. Mukowski said that Trump insisted on a young nominee. Sullivan said Kindred wasn’t his first choice, either.
Still, Murkowski said she and Sullivan managed to find some common ground on a new batch of nominees, though she stressed that she and Sullivan did not compromise on their methods.
“He sent names from his process. I sent names from my process, and there is overlap in that," she said. "But again, we both had our respective processes in terms of how we interviewed, how we vetted, and how we advanced.”
Murkowski said she hopes the White House will be done with its vetting process so that President Trump can announce nominees when Congress returns after the August recess.
