Saritha Komatireddy not re-nominated as judge by President Trump
Last year President Donald Trump nominated Indian Americans Saritha Komatireddy and Vijay Shanker as federal judges: Komatireddy (in photo) to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York and Shanker to serve as an Associate Judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for a 15-year term.
Komatireddy and Shanker were likely nominated for judicial positions by Trump on the recommendation of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. The society’s Co-Chaiman Leonard Leo is viewed as the unofficial judicial adviser to Trump. Founded in 1982, the society “is a group of conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the current legal order.”
But the U.S. Senate did not confirm Komatireddy and Shanker’s nominations, along with that of 22 others Trump judicial nominees, and returned the list to the President on January 3. Last week, Trump re-nominated Shanker but not Komatireddy. The lack of confirmation votes and list of re-nominations may have to do with political considerations of Trump and current Senate majority leader Republican Mitch McConnell, including their priorities in filling judicial vacancies as well as selecting from the list of nominees.
“Federal judges serve long after the appointing president leaves office, interpreting what the Constitution and statutes mean and deciding cases involving the most important cases of our time,” notes the conservative Heritage Foundation, which lobbied for Trump’s judicial nominations. So Republican and Democratic presidents try to appoint as many Federal judges as they can, from among lawyers who share or sympathize with their views on abortion, health care and other major political, economic and social issues.
Trump has had good success in nominating judges apparently supported by the Federalist Society and other conservative groups. In his four-year Presidential term, Trump got Senate approval for 234 federal judges, including three to the Supreme Court. In contrast, during his first four-year term, Democratic President Barack Obama got only 171 federal judges approved, including two to the Supreme Court.
Shanker though has little chance of being confirmed since the Democrats won both Senate seats in the January 5th runoff elections in Georgia. Now, with the Senate tied 50:50 between Democrats and Republicans, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be the deciding vote. This will give control of the Senate to the Democrats who are unlikely to approve Shanker or any of Trump’s other judicial nominees.
When Joe Biden becomes President on January 20, there will be 51 vacancies, or about 6% of the 860 total federal judgeships. He is expected to nominate moderate and liberal judges approved by fellow Democrats.
Shanker serves as Senior Litigation Counsel in the United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, and as Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section. He has briefed and argued several dozen criminal appeals in ten different federal circuit courts and prepares draft briefs for the Solicitor General for filing in the Supreme Court.
Before joining the Justice Department in 2012, Shanker was in private practice with the Washington, D.C., offices of Mayer Brown, LLP, and Covington & Burling, LLP.
Shanker is an adjunct associate professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. In 1999, after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, Shanker served as a law clerk to Judge Chester J. Straub on the United States Court of Appeals. While at law school, he was the Notes Editor for the Virginia Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif for finishing in the top 10% of his class. In 1994, Shanker earned his B.A. in Policy Studies from Duke University.
Saritha Komatireddy clerked for Brett Kavanaugh
Saritha Komatireddy is Deputy Chief of General Crimes in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She served as Acting Deputy Chief of International Narcotics and Money Laundering and as the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Coordinator for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Earlier, Komatireddy served as Counsel to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and was in private practice at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick.
Upon graduation from Harvard Law School, Komatireddy served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals. In 2018, Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 50 to 48, after a contentious process including allegations against him about sexual misconduct.
“I considered it a special privilege to train under a man who had such fundamental respect for the law and a complete commitment to getting it right,” Komatireddy said in support of Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, in a statement released by the Trump White House.
Komatireddy is a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and previously taught at George Washington University Law School. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University. While at law school, she served on the Harvard Law Review.
Vanita Gupta may help pick Biden’s judicial nominees
Meanwhile, last week President-elect Joe Biden nominated Vanita Gupta as an Associate Attorney General. An Indian-American, if confirmed, she will be the first woman of color to serve in the role. Gupta is currently CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of over 200 U.S. civil rights groups.
From 2014 to 2017, she served under President Barack Obama as the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division— the chief civil rights prosecutor for the United States. In this role, she led efforts to reform the criminal justice system, including investigating the Ferguson, Baltimore, and Chicago police departments, prosecuting hate crimes, protecting disability and LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights, and fighting human trafficking and discrimination in education, housing, lending, and employment.
Earlier Gupta was a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), including as the Deputy Legal Director and the Director of the Center for Justice. While at the ACLU, Gupta led the Smart Justice Campaign aimed at ending mass incarceration. She started her legal career as an attorney at the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 individuals in Tulia, Texas, who were ultimately pardoned by then-Governor Rick Perry.
Gupta was born in Philadelphia to parents who immigrated from India. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received her law degree from New York University. She is married to Chinh Q. Le, legal director of the Legal Aid Society of the Washington D.C., who also worked at the NAACP. They have two sons.
Vanita Gupta, If confirmed by Congress as an Associate Attorney General, may have a major role in helping Joe Biden pick his slate of federal judicial nominees.
