The U.S. Senate has confirmed a former clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and the late Antonin Scalia to be a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52 to 45 in favor of Eric Tung, a partner at Jones Day. This made him the first judge President Donald Trump selected for the San Francisco-based appeals court during his second administration.
His confirmation brings the total number of judges Trump appointed to the 9th Circuit from 2017 to 2020 during his first term to 10. This weakens the power of Democratic appointees, who have long held sway on a court that was previously thought to be the most liberal of all the federal appellate courts.
There are currently 16 Democratic appointees and 13 Republican appointees on the 9th Circuit, including Tung. In July, Trump nominated Tung to fill the seat that U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta had held. She stated in March that she would step down when a successor was named.
When Trump announced Tung’s nomination, he called him a “Tough Patriot” on social media and said he would preserve the Rule of Law in the “most RADICAL, Leftist States” like California, Oregon, and Washington. These are three of the nine states that the 9th Circuit has jurisdiction over.
Tung is a partner at the law firm Jones Day in Los Angeles. Before that, he was a federal prosecutor and worked for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Tung worked as a clerk for Gorsuch twice: once when he was on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and again after Trump confirmed him to the Supreme Court in 2017. He had also worked for Scalia, who passed away in 2016.
During the confirmation process, Senate Democrats painted Tung as a right-wing ideologue by pointing to things he had said and written in the past about gender roles, same-sex marriage, and transgender healthcare.
In July, they grilled Tung hard over comments he made in an essay in Yale’s student newspaper when he was an undergraduate in 2004. In the article, he chastised “radical feminists” for wanting to “blur gender roles” and “undermine institutions like marriage.”
This comes amid the federal government shutdown, which is approaching almost 40 days.
The Democratic House and Senate leaders sent a letter to President Trump on Wednesday morning, a day after elections nationwide saw their party pick up gains in blue regions, demanding “bipartisan” talks to reopen the government.
“We write to demand a bipartisan meeting of legislative leaders to end the GOP shutdown and decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis,” the short letter began. “Democrats stand ready to meet with you anytime, anyplace.”
The letter comes after most Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against a GOP-led spending bill to reopen the government.
Meanwhile, a new report suggests that key elements of a potential deal to end the federal government shutdown are beginning to take shape — though it remains uncertain when, or even if, all sides will reach an agreement.
According to Axios, the proposed “three-legged” plan includes three main components: a Senate vote on Affordable Care Act tax credits, a short-term continuing resolution to give negotiators more time to finalize a full-year budget for the fiscal year that began October 1, and a separate vote to fund military construction, the legislative branch, and agriculture programs.
“I think we’re getting close to an off-ramp here,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, told the outlet.
One sticking point, however, remains the duration of the continuing resolution to keep the government funded.
Before Senate Democrats forced the government into a shutdown, the House had already passed a bill to keep it funded through November 21.
If the Senate now strikes a deal to reopen the government, the House will have to return to session and approve the measure, extending the funding deadline in the process.
The dispute over health care tax credits—a key factor behind the shutdown—would be addressed through a Senate vote on extending the credits, as Democrats have demanded.