March 21, 2024 / By mobanmarket
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A North Shore native is poised to become the first Latino member of the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Maldonado, 48, of Wilmette, was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in April 2022. She was confirmed by the Senate that July by a 53-45 vote, becoming the first Latina to ever serve as a federal judge in Illinois.
Last month, Biden nominated her to a vacancy created by U.S. Circuit Judge Illana Rovner’s decision to move to semi-retired senior status. Rovner was the first women on the 7th Circuit when former President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the job in 1992.
Before becoming a judge, Maldonado spent her two-decade legal career at Chicago-based civil rights firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where she focused on employment litigation.
Maldonado, who was born in Skokie to parents from Puerto Rico, appeared Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on her nomination, where she received support and congratulations from Democrats and critical questioning from Republicans.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to be trusted with administering justice in my home district,” Maldonado testified at the hearing.
Several Republican members of the committee brought up statistics suggesting Maldonado lags behind other judge’s in moving cases through her call.
Maldonado’s courtroom in Chicago has the most pending motions in the 7th Circuit and the seventh highest nationally, and she had the third-most motions pending for six months or more out of the nearly 70 district judges who were confirmed in the 117th Congress, GOP senators noted.
“When I came onto the bench I was assigned around 300 cases that had existing motions. I’ve worked really hard to get those motions — I think it was in the hundreds that I inherited — down to a reasonable number, and I’m still working at it,” Maldonado said. “I am very careful with my decision making.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, said Maldonado appeared has been curiously “out-of-step” when it comes to making decisions and moving cases forward. She brought up a pair of cases that have been awaiting rulings since late 2022.
“I went in and looked at your record and I noted the fact that you’ve only presided over one civil trial to verdict in your nearly two years on the bench. One trial. Just one. And that, combined with the fact that you had tried only three cases when you were private practice, leads me to question your fitness for the court,” Blackburn said. “So how can you expect us to confirm you to the circuit court when in two years you’ve provided over one civil trial and your backlog is larger than nearly everyone else? What would qualify you?”
“Senator, I would look at the quality of my decision-making,” Maldonado said.
Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who recommended Maldonado, pointed out that she has yet to be overturned on appeal in any substantive manner during her brief career as a judge.
“The fact that you have never been reversed in the two years you have been practicing is an indication that you are careful and thoughtful and obviously up to the job,” Durbin said.
Louisiana Republican Sen. Joe Kennedy described Maldonado as “probably the least productive” judge in northern Illinois.
“Well, I have not considered myself in those terms, Senator,” Maldonado said.
Kennedy cited that statistics comparing judges by the number of pending motions in their courtrooms.
“You haven’t seen that you rank the seventh-worst in the country in terms of making decisions?” he asked.
“You are the first to tell me this,” she said.
Kennedy pivoted from a discussion of courtroom statistics to Maldonado’s role in a brief filed on behalf of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in support of the Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, the Cook County ordinance that was upheld by federal courts but, as Patch first reported in 2018, never enforced.
Maldonado told Kennedy that she had not written or researched the brief, although she had read it and signed it.
“Tell me what you meant by ‘assault weapons’,” Kennedy said.
“So I am not a gun expert,” she said. “And at the time, that brief was, I think, about 10 years—”
“But you’ve given court advice. Say, ‘Ban assault weapons,’ You told the court you were an expert. Just tell me what you wanted to ban.”
“Senator, sitting here today — as I said, I did not write that brief, I was local counsel —”
“You signed the brief,” Kennedy interrupted.
“I understand,” she said. “At the time that—”
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“Tell me what you wanted to ban. That’s all I want to know, judge.”
“I don’t remember the exact definitions of assault weapons in the ordinance that was at issue,” she said, expressing confidence that she would have been able to answer questions on the subject a decade ago.
The 7th Circuit Court last year upheld the statewide assault weapons ban contained in the Protect Illinois Communities Act. Gun owner advocates have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, reverse the appellate court and again allow the sale of AR-15s and other similar semiautomatic rifles.
California Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler asked about Maldonado’s process of learning and getting up to speed during the transition from being a law partner to a district court judge.
“It’s a fantastic nominee that the president is putting before us, not only qualified but organized, with an attention to detail and a commitment to timely justice for those who appear before her,” Butler said. “I’d be excited to support her.”
And New Jersey Democratic Sen. Corey Booker, who asked whether the judge’s husband does yoga with her, said he was also excited to support her nomination.
Earlier: Skokie-Born Wilmette Resident Nancy Maldonado To Become Federal Judge
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