Trump replaces judicial nominee in last-ditch bid to reshape US appeals court

On November 10, President Donald Trump's White House withdrew and replaced one of its judicial nominees, Lee Rudofsky, following opposition from Republican senators who questioned his ability to fill a crucial US appeals court position before Democrats gain control of the Senate. The White House announced that Rudofsky's nomination to the St. Louis-based 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals had been rescinded, and instead, Arkansas Supreme Court Justice J. Cody Hiland was nominated for the role.

The White House and Senate Republicans are in a race to confirm as many new judges as possible before January, when Democrats will take control of the Senate following the November 3 midterm elections. Rudofsky was appointed as a federal district court judge in Little Rock by Trump in 2019, with support from prominent conservative lawyers.

If Trump successfully appoints another judge, 10 of the court's 11 active judges would have been appointed by Republican presidents, 6 of them by Trump himself. However, the nomination faced obstacles as reports emerged that Arkansas' two Republican senators, John Boozman and Tom Cotton, preferred someone else to fill the Arkansas seat on the court.

This opposition gained attention after Mike Davis, a Trump ally at the conservative legal activist group Article III Project, accused them of making a grave error by blocking Rudofsky's nomination. Hiland, who has served on Arkansas' top state court since 2023, had initially expected the appeals court nomination but was instead offered a federal district judgeship.

In an August event at a law school in Arkansas, Hiland stated that he had not been interested in the position and declined it. Both Hiland and the senators did not respond to requests for comment. Rudofsky expressed gratitude to President Trump for nominating him but acknowledged that without the support of his home-state senators, confirmation would be a practical impossibility in the current Senate.