Norton to Press Senate on Local D.C. Courts Judicial Vacancy Crisis, Introduce D.C. Superior Court Nominee at Confirmation Hearing, Today

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will introduce District of Columbia Superior Court Nominee Kelly A. Higashi at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today, Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., in 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Higashi is currently an Assistant United States Attorney, serving for the past 14 years as the Chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia.

"Kelly Higashi is an outstanding nominee for our Superior Court, and I am pleased to see her nomination moving forward," Norton. "I must take the opportunity of her hearing as well to remind my friends in the Senate of the crisis that has been created in our local justice system because of the large number of vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court and D.C. Court of Appeals. In this current Congress, which is a year and half old, only one judge, a Superior Court nominee, has been confirmed. These vacancies have had harmful impacts are on the administration of justice in both our busy trial and appeal courts. Understandably, the attention of a federal body will be focused on federal judges. However, until Congress passes our bill for D.C. statehood, I am urgently asking that our District of Columbia Article I judges, funded by the federal government, be given significantly greater priority."

Currently, there are 10 vacancies out of 62 authorized judges on the D.C. Superior Court and two vacancies out of nine authorized judges on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

D.C. Superior Court and D.C. Court of Appeals judges are Article I judges, not Article III judges, and do not have lifetime appointments. Under the Home Rule Act, the D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission (Commission) recommends to the President a list of three persons for each vacancy on the D.C. Superior Court and D.C. Court of Appeals. The president must nominate a candidate recommended by the Commission within 60 days to the Senate for advice and consent. If the president fails to nominate such a person within 60 days, the Commission must nominate a recommended person directly to the Senate for advice and consent. The Senate has no obligation to provide its advice and consent.