Colorado Politics

Senate committee to hold hearing for Colorado judicial nomination

President Joe Biden’s nominee to fill the vacant trial court judgeship in Colorado will appear before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary next week during the first set of hearings on the administration’s judicial picks.

Regina M. Rodriguez, a former federal prosecutor and current corporate attorney with the global law firm WilmerHale, is among the five nominees scheduled for an April 28 hearing. Rodriguez was the sole recommendation from U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and the Senate received her formal nomination from the White House on April 19.

If confirmed, Rodriguez would fill a seat on the seven-member U.S. District Court for Colorado that has been vacant since March 2019. A second vacancy will occur in September, when Judge R. Brooke Jackson steps down as an active judge. Bennet and Hickenlooper have formed an advisory committee to screen applicants for that position.

Rodriguez was also President Barack Obama’s 2016 nominee to fill a different vacancy on the district court, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not act on her nomination.

In total, there are more than 100 current and announced vacancies for judgeships subject to presidential selection. The White House has so far submitted nine formal nominations to the Senate.

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