Trump picks five new judicial nominees in Alabama, Mississippi

[In It to Win It]

Reuters (Archived)

Aug 12 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump without any formal announcement has decided to nominate five new judges to serve on federal trial courts in Alabama and Mississippi as he moves to install a new batch of conservative jurists in two Republican-led states.

The new picks include Edmund LaCour, Alabama's solicitor general, whom Trump sought in his first term to appoint to the bench in 2020 only to be stymied when then-Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat in Alabama, declined to return a "blue slip" backing him.

By Senate custom, blue slips must be returned by both home state senators of a district court nominee for them to advance. Trump in his final days in office in January 2021 re-nominated LaCour, though Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew that nomination a month later.

Alabama now has two Republican senators, making his path to Senate confirmation this time smoother. LaCour has a track record of supporting conservative causes in court such as gun rights and abortion restrictions.

He argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 in favor of a Republican-drawn electoral map in Alabama. The justices by a 5-4 vote concluded the redrawn districts violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black residents.

JP Collins
‪@profjpc.bsky.social‬

Trump has announced the following district court nominees in Alabama and Mississippi:

Bill Lewis (MD AL)
Hal Mooty (ND AL)
Edmund LaCour (ND AL)*
Robert Chamberlin (ND Miss.)
James Maxwell II (ND Miss.)

*Trump previously nominated LaCour in 2020, but he was blocked by AL Senator Doug Jones.