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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Thacker</p>                                <p class=\"imgtitle\">Rockefeller</p>                                <p class=\"imgtitle\">Groh</p>                                <p class=\"imgtitle\">Tobias</p>           WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - West Virginia attorney Stephanie Thacker has been confirmed to a federal appeals court.<br /><br />The U.S. Senate voted 91-3 in favor of Thacker to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Monday evening.<br /><br />The roll call vote came after an executive session held to consider her nomination, with 60 minutes for debate, equally divided.<br /><br />In March, senators finally agreed to consider Thacker's nomination this month.<br /><br />Thacker was nominated by President Barack Obama in September to serve as a judge on the Fourth Circuit. She will replace Judge M. Blane Michael, who died earlier this year. Michael had held the position since 1993.<br /><br />U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, speaking on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, called Thacker \"uniquely qualified\" to carry on Michael's \"legacy of independence, humility and intellectual honesty as a federal judge.\"<br /><br />\"She has the courage to make tough decisions and will not back down from a challenge. She has the superior intellect necessary to analyze the complex legal issues that come before the federal appeals courts. She will look at every case with a fair and open mind and will issue opinions that are guided by our Constitutional principles and always grounded in the law,\" West Virginia's senior senator said.<br /><br />\"And she will never forget her solemn duty to uphold fairness and justice for everyone, regardless of social status or economic means.\"<br /><br />The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in November unanimously approved Thacker's nomination to the federal appeals court.<br /><br />She has since waited several months to be confirmed by the full Senate -- much like fellow West Virginian Gina Groh, whose own nomination was finally confirmed last month.<br /><br />Groh, a Berkeley circuit judge, was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.<br /><br />On March 15, in a roll call vote, her nomination to the federal district court was confirmed overwhelmingly, like Thacker's, 95-2.<br /><br />Groh will fill the vacancy left by the 2006 death of Judge Craig Broadwater.<br /><br />Groh, who was nominated by Obama last May, waited more than five months to be confirmed.<br /><br />Her nomination was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote in October, but, like many other judicial nominations, including Thacker's, was held up due to party politics.<br /><br />Some GOP senators were still fuming over Obama's decision in January to make a controversial recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to the post of director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<br /><br />The CFPB was created by the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul and is tasked with regulating consumer financial products.<br /><br />Democrats, including Obama, argued Republicans were \"stonewalling\" Cordray's nomination.<br /><br />So, the president went ahead and appointed Cordray. In turn, some Republican senators threatened to hold up Obama's nominations.<br /><br />However, in the days leading up to Groh's confirmation, senators came to an agreement to work to confirm 14 judicial nominees by May 7.<br /><br />That means two to three confirmation votes will be held a week while the Senate is in session.<br /><br />Carl Tobias, the Williams Professor of Law at University of Richmond's law school and a keen observer of the judicial nomination process, said the overwhelming vote in favor of Thacker was not surprising, given that, like Groh, she is well-qualified, non-controversial and had strong support from both of her home state senators, Rockefeller and Joe Manchin.<br /><br />\"What is surprising and troubling is why she had to wait so long for a floor vote,\" Tobias said.<br /><br />However, appellate court nominees are more heavily scrutinized because they are deemed more important, he explained.<br /><br />\"They are one level below the U.S. Supreme Court, and are the final word in 99 percent of cases and considered to make more policy than district judges,\" Tobias said.<br /><br />As for the Senate's current plan to vote on 14 nominations before May 7, Tobias said the Senate is on track to meet that number.<br /><br />But what happens after that, no one knows, he said.<br /><br />\"It is unclear what will happen after the agreement expires -- whether the GOP will return to stalling or agree to more floor votes or force the Democrats to move for cloture,\" Tobias said.<br /><br /><em>From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at jessica@legalnewsline.com.</em>"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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