Blackburn opposes Nashville judicial nominee, leads grilling in Senate hearing

Senate Republicans derailed the nomination hearing for a Nashville lawyer to a federal appeals court Thursday morning by trying to paint her as radical based on her past associations with two progressive Nashville organizations.

A law scholar called it “political theater” by Senate Republicans who have grown increasingly “aggressive, and even vicious” in questioning appellate nominees.

President Joe Biden nominated Karla Campbell, a plaintiffs' lawyer at Nashville law firm Stranch, Jennings & Garvey, to an upcoming vacancy on the bench of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May. She was seen by some as a natural successor to U.S. Circuit Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, with whom Campbell overlapped for about a year at the firm and under whom Campbell clerked at the 6th Circuit.

Blackburn opposes Nashville lawyer's nomination

It was rough from the beginning for Campbell, the only of the day’s four nominees not introduced to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary by her home-state senator.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said she opposed Campbell’s nomination because she claimed the White House “shut Sen. (Bill) Hagerty and I out of this process.” Blackburn said during the hearing she had “all the documentation” to show that but has not returned The Tennessean’s messages. A senior Biden administration official told The Tennessean the administration considered the senators’ other Nashville-based names for the nomination before deciding on Campbell and offered the senators chances to interview Campbell on at least three occasions. Campbell acknowledged during her introductory remarks that she was interviewed by the senators’ staffs for the position.

Republicans question Campbell's ties to worker and immigrant rights groups

For the following 65 minutes, senators grilled Campbell and a nominee for the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Maine Superior Court Justice Julia Lipez.

Much of the questioning centered on Campbell’s affiliations with two Nashville groups — the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the economic justice center Workers’ Dignity — as well as a donation she made to the 2022 campaign of former Democratic Tennessee state house candidate Odessa Kelly. Republican senators attempted to hold Campbell accountable for the groups’ and Kelly's most radical positions, which Campbell distanced herself from.

Campbell said that her work with the groups was limited in scope and ended years ago and that she never represented the groups legally.

Campbell said she served on a advisory board for Workers' Dignity around the time of its creation in 2010 but has not been involved in "likely a decade." Her online legal profile still showed an affiliation with the organization at the time of the hearing, which Campbell said was an error. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that Workers' Dignity has called for the abolition of "oppressive systems like police and the military" and asked Campbell if she agrees. Campbell said she does not.

"At that time, they did not express those kinds of views," Campbell said in response to a similar line of questioning by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Senators also questioned her affiliation with TIRRC, which they said thanked her for providing expertise in preparing a document that outlined policy recommendations including that Nashville officials refuse to cooperate with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the deportation of undocumented residents. That document is not available online.

She said she was not familiar with that purported document and said she does not agree with that position. They also questioned her over Kelly's social media posts, which Campbell said she was not familiar with.

Carl Tobias, Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond School of Law, said senators were trying to establish “guilt by association" and were playing to the cameras.

"It's a lot of theater going on," Tobias said. "She had pretty good temperament, it seems, for a lot of questions that were loaded and really not getting at a lot of points."

The Tennessean sent messages to Workers' Dignity and TIRRC seeking comment but did not hear back in time for publication.

A few Democrats offered some sympathy to the nominees. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., thanked Campbell and Lipez for participating in the questioning, which he acknowledged was “not pleasant” and “not fair.”

“Welcome to our world,” he said.

What happens next for Karla Campbell, Nashville lawyer nominated to federal appeals court?

Campbell and the other judicial nominees will next face a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, likely in mid-July. Tobias expects Campbell will narrowly pass the committee vote on party lines, 11-10.

She would then go to the Senate floor for debate, most likely after Labor Day, Tobias said. A cloture vote would end debate, and she would then face a confirmation vote.

Tobias said he believes there is time for Campbell to be confirmed before the Senate recesses in late September until Nov. 12, after election day.

“There is not a lot of time in D.C. to do this,” Tobias said. “But there's time for her to make it.”

Tobias said it will be close but expects Campbell would have the votes to be confirmed, given that the Senate is functionally split 51-49 in Democrats’ favor.

Campbell has worked with marginalized groups, including in a class action lawsuit brought by incarcerated residents against the Tennessee Department of Correction over a lack of Hepatitis C medication and in a lawsuit accusing a Murfreesboro landscaping company of trafficking immigrants for forced labor. She is a 2002 graduate from the University of Virginia and a 2008 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights organizations, praised her "vital civil rights experience."

"We urge the full Senate to swiftly advance Ms. Campbell’s nomination," Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement. "Time is of the essence, as much more progress is urgently needed to build an equal justice judiciary that respects and protects the rights of all people."

Campbell could become Biden's fifth appointee to the 6th Circuit Court after the president nominated another Tennessee lawyer in March. U.S. Attorney Kevin Ritz of the Western District of Tennessee is awaiting confirmation by the Senate to take the place of Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, a George W. Bush appointee and fellow Tennessean.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Karla Campbell: Senate grills Nashville nominee to 6th Circuit