The U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee approved the federal appeals court nomination of Yale University lawyer Susan Carney Thursday, sending her name to the Senate floor for confirmation.
The committee's Republican minority asked for a roll call vote on Carney, whose lack of trial experience became a Republican issue earlier in what has been a protracted confirmation process
Carney was one of four of President Barack Obama's nominees to the federal courts cleared by the committee Thursday. She was approved by a 16-2 vote, with two Republican objections. The committee also approved and sent to the full senate the district court nominations of Sue E. Myerscough of Illinois, James E. Shadid of Illinois and Michael H. Simon of Oregon
While Carney's nomination began moving after months of partisan delay, lawyers and politicians in Connecticut were focused on who Obama would pick to fill the other, open Connecticut seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Obama nominated U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny to fill that seat a year ago. But Chatigny withdrew his name last month after enduring an extraordinary partisan attack over controversial remarks he made while presiding over an 11th hour hearing in the death penalty case of serial killer Michael Ross.
Lawyers and politicians who track federal judicial appointments were betting on former West Hartford Mayor, U.S. Attorney and current U.S. District Judge Christopher F. Droney.
Political observers said Droney's record as a former prosecutor and judicial moderate could inoculate him against the kind of criticism from the right that hurt Chatigny. Droney also has the support of his brother John Droney, the former state Democratic chairman who many believe engineered Democratic U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's upset victory against incumbent Republican Lowell P. Weicker in 1988. As Connecticut's senior senator, Lieberman is consulted on judicial nominations from the state.
Obama nominated Carney in May. But her nomination, along with that of Chatigny and dozens of other judicial candidates, expired late last year without being acted upon by the full Senate after the process became mired in nomination politics.
Carney has worked for Yale University's legal counsel's office for 12 years, most recently as deputy general counsel. At the school, she hired lawyers and supervised their work, often in evolving areas of the law such as intellectual property. But she has rarely appeared in court and is little known among members of the Connecticut bar.
"Normally we would expect a judge of the United States Court of Appeals, one step below the Supreme Court, to have some experience in the courtroom or in the appellate arena," Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions told Carney when she first appeared before the committee in September.
Carney said her appellate work and work as an in-house counsel qualifies her for a seat on the 2nd circuit, one of the most important appellate courts in the country.
Thursday's Judiciary Committee meeting was the first for its newest member, Connecticut's newly elected junior Senator, Democrat and former state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal got a warm welcome from Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who said that an earlier Connecticut Senator, Oliver Ellsworth, authored legislation that created the federal court system and led to the creation of the Judiciary Committee.