Toomey expresses continued support for Susan Paradise Baxter

The process for filling Erie's federal district judgeship — a seat that has been vacant for 3½ years — has been restarted.

U.S. Magistrate Susan Paradise Baxter, whom fellow Democrat President Barack Obama nominated in 2015, must be renominated to the lifetime post by President Donald Trump, according to the office of Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who will be instrumental in the nomination process.

Toomey and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat, supported Obama's nomination of Baxter, 60, a Democrat from Erie who has been a federal magistrate judge for 22 years. Toomey will support a renomination of Baxter under Trump, a Republican, said Toomey's spokesman, Steve Kelly.

"Sen. Toomey believes it is crucial to place a sitting judge at the federal courthouse in Erie, which has remained vacant for years," Kelly said. "He believes that Judge Baxter has the intellect, experience and integrity to serve as a federal judge.

"Sen. Toomey looks forward to working with Sen. Casey and the White House to fill the vacancy at the Erie courthouse and other pending vacancies on the federal bench in Pennsylvania."

Casey's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though Casey has expressed support for Baxter.

Given Toomey's support, Baxter's has a strong chance at renomination and then Senate confirmation, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who specializes in the federal judiciary and who has advocated for Baxter’s confirmation.

"I can't imagine why the president would not listen to that," Tobias said of Toomey's endorsement of Baxter. "There is no reason not to."

Tobias said the nominations of Baxter and about 50 other Obama judicial nominees expired on Jan. 3, when the 114th Congress adjourned. One of the other nominees was federal Judge Merrick Garland, whom Obama had nominated to the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia a year ago.

Under Senate Rule 31, all pending judicial nominations are returned when the Senate adjourns at the end of a session or when the Senate recesses for more than 30 days.

"They are all sent back," Tobias said. "Their nominations expired."

He said Baxter, if renominated, could move quickly through the confirmation process. He said she might not need to appear again before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing on her nomination in December 2015.

Toomey and Casey both warmly endorsed her at the hearing, and the Judiciary Committee in January 2016 advanced Baxter's nomination to the full GOP-controlled Senate for a vote.

But the nomination then languished, leaving U.S. District Court in Erie without a federal judge from Erie. Judges from Pittsburgh and elsewhere have been filling in at the federal courthouse on Perry Square.

If Baxter does not have to appear before the Judiciary Committee again, "she could be one of the first people confirmed," Tobias said.

Baxter was unavailable for comment on Monday.

With Obama's nomination, she was in line to succeed U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin, who left the post on Aug. 16, 2013, when he was 58, to take a position at Erie Insurance Group.

Baxter during the nomination process has remained a federal magistrate judge, in which she is one step below a U.S. district judge and hears civil matters and preliminary proceedings in criminal cases. Baxter was named a part-time federal magistrate judge in 1995 and received a full-time appointment to the post in 2001.

Federal magistrate judges are appointed to renewable eight-year terms. Federal district judges — or trial court judges — are appointed for life, as are federal appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices. The United States has 677 district judges, and they are among the nation's most sought-after legal positions.

Baxter's appointment as a federal magistrate judge was last renewed for another eight years in 2009. Her current eight-year term expires on Aug. 26, and she is up for reappointment, according to a legal advertisement in Sunday's Erie Times-News.

The Pittsburgh-based U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, which includes Erie, placed the ad, which asks for public input as a panel of merit panel of citizens consider Baxter's reappointment. Any comments are due by Thursday.

The panel will present its recommendations to the federal district judges in the Western District, who will vote on whether to reappoint Baxter. The panel will have until May 23 to present its report, said Robert Barth, the clerk of court for the Western District.

He said a board of eight district judges — six active judges and two senior judges, who are retired but hear cases — will vote on Baxter's reappointment.

Baxter would earn $205,100 as a federal district judge. The salary for a federal magistrate judge is $188,692, or a mandated 92 percent of the earnings of a district judges.

If Baxter is confirmed as a federal district judge, another person would have to be selected to succeed her as federal magistrate judge.

Federal district judges appoint magistrate judges. Federal magistrate judges are in a different category than district judges, appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices, whom the president nominates and the Senate confirms. Those and other judges are known as Article III judges, after Article III of the Constitution.

Baxter is by no means alone in her nomination wait. Of the nation's 870 Article III judgeships, 112 seats are vacant, including three others in the Western District of Pennsylvania — two in Pittsburgh and one in Johnstown.

Of all the 112 vacancies, only one — for Supreme Court — has a nominee pending to fill it. Trump on Jan. 31 named U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch, of Colorado, to the seat. He is awaiting a Senate confirmation hearing.

The Erie district judge vacancy is one of the oldest among the 112 vacancies. It is tied for sixth as the Article III judicial seat that has been open the longest, according to federal court records.

Ed Palattella can be reached at 870-1813 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNpalattella.