Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren and Colleen Holland both have asked the White House to be removed from consideration for lifetime judiciary posts after being nominated by President Joe Biden in 2023.
Bjelkengren in particular, whom Biden nominated to serve in the Eastern District of Washington, drew fire during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2023 over her answers to questions from Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) regarding the Constitution.
Both nominations expired at the end of the previous year, and neither was included in the list of 18 nominations resubmitted by the White House to the Senate on Monday. The president reserves the right to re-submit any expired nominations to the Senate at a later date.
Kennedy told the Washington Examiner in a statement on Wednesday that Bjelkengren was right to withdraw her name from consideration.
“Biden sent us a nominee who didn’t know the basics of the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote. “Judge Bjelkengren is right to bow out. Unfortunately, Biden just keeps trying to put unqualified people on the bench — for life. People who don’t know the law have no business running our courtrooms.”
The pair represents two of Biden’s five judicial nominations that expired heading into the New Year. Bjelkengren, who is currently a superior court judge in Spokane County, Washington, confirmed to Reuters that she had asked the White House to withdraw her nomination.
“I asked the President not to re-nominate me due to the uncertainty of my confirmation, and in order to advance the important work of the federal judiciary,” Bjelkengren wrote in a statement. “My hope is for the swift confirmation of the next nominee.”
Holland, who told Reuters that her decision to withdraw her name from consideration was a “personal decision,” had been nominated to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. Unlike Bjelkengren, Holland was a career clerk and had worked as special counsel to the Western District of New York’s Chief Judge Elizabeth Wolford since 2018.
The White House declined to comment on any of the five judicial nominations that expired heading into 2024 but did submit nearly 50 nominations and renominations, including acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, to the Senate on Monday.
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Additionally, Biden announced his 44th round of judicial nominations on Tuesday.
That list included Amir Ali to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Melissa DuBose to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, Judge Sunil Harjani to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert White to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, and Jasmine Yoon to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.