The Senate on July 14 confirmed Whitney Hermandorfer to a job in the federal courts, the first approval of one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees during his second term.
The 46–42 vote in the upper chamber to confirm Hermandorfer to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit fell along strict party lines.
The 37-year-old attorney is among the youngest ever confirmed to the federal bench.
“She is the very first judicial nomination of President Trump’s second term, and there is a good reason the president selected Ms. Hermandorfer for the circuit court,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), whose home state of Tennessee is included in the Sixth Circuit, said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“There is no one more qualified to take on this role as an appellate judge for our great nation.”
Democrats had a different stance.
In a speech on the Senate floor hours before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump of choosing judicial nominees on the basis of personal loyalty rather than qualifications.
“Ms. Hermandorfer has failed to show that she can be an independent jurist committed to upholding the law,” he said. “She has less than 10 years of legal experience. She has never served as the sole or chief counsel on a single case.”
Hermandorfer, born in Clearwater, Florida, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a BA and a minor in psychology in 2009. She went on to receive her Juris Doctor from George Washington University Law School in 2015, graduating summa cum laude.
She later clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh from 2016 to 2017 when he was still a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She continued to work in the circuit until 2018.
At that point, she moved up to the Supreme Court, clerking first for Justice Samuel Alito from 2018 to 2019 and for Justice Amy Coney Barrett from 2020 to 2021.
She was nominated to the post by Trump on May 2 to succeed Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch on the Sixth Circuit.
Her nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 26 in a party-line 12–10 vote, while the Senate invoked cloture on her nomination on July 10 in a 51–43 vote.
