It’s now been six months since New Jerseyan Adeel Mangi’s nomination to a judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals became imperiled due to opposition from several key Democratic senators, and there’s still no clear plan to get him confirmed.
Brand-new New Jersey Senator Geroge Helmy, though, said today that while Mangi’s nomination likely won’t come up before the presidential election, he’s optimistic that Mangi may come up for a Senate vote in November, after Congress returns from its election-season recess.
“I’m still personally reading through his record – I’m actually going to meet with him pretty soon,” Helmy said of Mangi. “I think folks are still very committed to him. I don’t know that it’s going to be done in September, but hopefully it will be taken up in November.”
Helmy’s comments echo those of his fellow New Jersey senator, Cory Booker, who said in May that he was “still hopeful that we can get [Mangi’s nomination] through.”
Mangi, a native of Pakistan and a partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler who lives in North Jersey, was nominated by President Joe Biden in November 2023 to fill the Third Circuit seat last held by Barack Obama appointee Joseph Greenaway. Two months later and after two fraught hearings, Mangi was approved by the Judiciary Committee, the first step towards Senate confirmation.
But Mangi’s nomination has fallen apart since then, with the entire Senate Republican conference united against him and several key Democratic senators in swing states also opposing his nomination due in large part to his connections to a controversial center at Rutgers University. Unless some of those Democrats can be flipped back into Mangi’s column, his bid to become the first-ever Muslim federal appellate judge may be doomed.
The clock is ticking, too, since if Donald Trump wins the presidency and Republicans retake control of the Senate in November, they would be able to confirm their own conservative nominee to the seat instead. That raises the stakes on Biden and Democrats to either get Mangi through soon or choose a new nominee to rapidly push through instead (though if Kamala Harris wins the presidential race, the urgency will be reduced).
As Helmy attested, Senate Democrats certainly haven’t been dilatory in confirming judges to other courts around the country; Helmy has already voted to confirm seven new judges since being sworn in as an interim senator just last week.
“I think the good news is that we’ve been able to move a number of judges already since I’ve been here,” he said. “So we’re seeing a lot of progress on the judges, and we’re hopeful that Mr. Mangi will come before us in November.”