Law Clerk Addict

It has been a pretty active day with respect to federal district court nominations, even though President Barack Obama has not actually made any judicial nominations today.

* Dave Freudenthal, the Democratic governor of Wyoming, has been lobbying President Obama since March to nominate his wife, attorney Nancy Freudenthal, to a vacant position in the District of Wyoming. To his credit, it does not appear that President Obama intends to act on the governor's recommendation.

* Freshman Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) has submitted recommended nominees to President Obama for vacant judgeships in the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Middle District of North Carolina. It does not appear that Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) participated in this process.

* While on the subject of excluding Republicans from the judicial nomination process, President Obama announced today that, when it comes to filling the vacancy created by the resignation of disgraced former judge Samuel Kent (S.D. Tex.), he intends to ignore the recommendations of Senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) unless their proposed nominees are approved by Texas's Democratic Congressmen.

* In related Southern District of Texas news, Chief Judge Hayden Head has announced that whoever replaces former Judge Kent will be based in McAllen rather than Galveston due to the ever growing McAllen docket.

* Although no judges were nominated today, President Obama did nominate U.S. Attorneys for Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Ohio, and South Dakota. While not directly related to judicial nominations, even the most cursory examination of district court judge biographies on this site will quickly reveal that service as a U.S. Attorney, particularly in a President's first term, often leads to a district court nomination down the road.