House Moves to Boost Trump Authority Over DC Judge Selection (1)

The House is expected to vote next week on a bill that would grant the president sole authority to nominate judges to Washington’s busiest local court, eliminating the city’s 52-year-old commission used to identify candidates for the bench.

The move is one of several by House Republicans this week to centralize President Donald Trump’s control over criminal justice in the nation’s capital, even as they allowed Trump’s emergency order taking control of the city’s police force to expire. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved 14 bills on Wednesday aimed at the city’s criminal justice system, including measures to lower the age of juveniles charged as an adult to 14 from 16 and remove the city’s elected attorney general.

The bill to modify the judge selection process would eliminate the city’s seven-member Judicial Nomination Commission, established in 1973 under the city’s Home Rule Act to recommend candidates for the president to send to the Senate for confirmation. The measure would also empower the president to pick the chief judges of both the DC Superior Court and the DC Court of Appeals, the city’s highest court, which the commission now does.

It’s unclear whether the measure has sufficient support in the Senate to reach the president’s desk. Previous bills to repeal local DC laws received bipartisan support in June, including one barring noncitizens from voting in local elections.

The commission is made up of District residents chosen by a cross section of officials, including the president, the mayor, the DC Bar, City Council and the Chief Judge of the US District Court. For each judicial vacancy, the commission identifies three nominees whose names and backgrounds are sent to the White House. The president then picks from one of the three and sends that candidate to the Senate for confirmation.

Trump recently chose from the commission’s list in making nominations—all current or former federal prosecutors—to the Senate to fill four of the current 13 judicial vacancies. The vacancies, courthouse officials have long said, have crippled the court’s operations for more than a year as it tries to return to full staffing of 62 judges.

“It is important we do this because I believe DC needs a new system,” said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), sponsor of the bill calling for commission’s elimination. “Whether it is a Republican or Democrat in the White House, it is important for them to make decisions and not have to wait on a commission.”

The commission was created to identify and select a diverse pool of candidates from established D.C. attorneys from which the president could choose. Eliminating the commission would strip authority from the city’s mayor and city council in identifying candidates for the positions.

Commission supporters said that unlike with federal judge positions, Superior Court handles not only criminal and civil cases, but also landlord and tenant issues, adoptions, divorces and child neglect cases. The breadth of such cases, supporters say, requires candidates who have varied experience and knowledge of the city’s laws.

Misty Thomas Zaleski, executive director of the Council for Court Excellence, said Trump nominated eight individuals as well as the four nominations this year. “The president has a say in who is selected. There is no legal or practical problem that needs to be correcting. Eliminating the commission would get rid of a meaningful, valuable vetting process that actually helps the president.”

But critics of the group have long argued the president should have sole discretion in selecting judges, as he does with district court judges, who work in the federal courthouse across the street from Superior Court. Critics have also said judges should not be in a position to nominate other judges to the bench.

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed to the commission by the district court’s chief judge, oversaw the president’s federal criminal case involving efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“It is unconstitutional that a sitting judge should be in a position to pick another judge for the bench. This process should have been eliminated decades ago,” said James Burnham, former general counsel of the Department of Government Efficiency and now a managing partner at King Street Legal in Washington.

Supporters say that in an attempt to reduce crime, the president should be tasked with identifying who oversees criminal cases, not the commission.

“For too long, left-wing, soft-on-crime policies in DC have allowed juvenile and violent crime to thrive in our nation’s capital,” said oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky). “Every resident and visitor deserves to feel safe in our capital, and together with President Trump, the Oversight Committee is fulfilling its constitutional duty to oversee District affairs and make D.C. safe again.”