The US Senate on Tuesday voted to promote US District Judge Stephanie Dawkins Davis to be a federal appeals court judge and become only the second Black woman to serve on the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 49-43 vote to elevate the Flint, Michigan-based judge to the 6th Circuit came amid a continued push by Senate Democrats to confirm as many of Biden’s judicial nominees as possible before the November midterm elections.
Republicans Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins on Maine joined with Democrats to support the former federal prosecutor, who former President Donald Trump first nominated to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in 2019.
The nomination of the then-federal magistrate judge by Biden’s Republican predecessor followed months of negotiations by the White House and Michigan’s two Democratic senators, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, who supported Davis.
“Judge Davis has spent her entire career in Michigan, and we are better for it” Stabenow said on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
Davis will be the first Black woman from Michigan to serve on the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit, which hears appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, and will succeed U.S. Circuit Judge Helene White, who is taking senior status.
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