VPIRG president, Planned Parenthood lawyer, racial equity office head, former House Speaker screening next federal judge candidates
This news story appeared first in the Bennington Banner.
by Mike Donoghue
The names of at least two leading lawyers to potentially replace retiring Federal Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford have been forwarded to Vermont’s Congressional delegation.
It is unclear when Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Peter Welch, D-Vt. will release the names of the top candidates seeking the lifetime appointment as a federal judge. The federal judgeship, which pays $232,600 annually, is considered lucrative in Vermont and normally draws applications from state judges and others.
It also is unclear if, and when, the general public will be given a chance by the two senators to weigh in on the merits of the proposed finalists.
Sanders’ office and Welch did not respond to requests for information.
An extra lid of secrecy has been put on the selection process this time, according to two people familiar with the screening, but not authorized to speak about it publicly. The Senators withheld who and how the individual members of the screening committee were made.
Crawford has served on the federal bench since 2014. The new judge’s primary assignment would be at the U.S. District Courthouse on West Street in Rutland.
Crawford and Burlington lawyer John Pacht, who later was named a state judge, were the two names forwarded in 2014 by the advisory committee that eventually went to the White House for the last district court vacancy.
Sanders and Welch, who are consulting with Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., are expected to forward their recommendation to the White House. President Joe Biden will make a formal nomination, which must be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and eventually the full senate.
Welch was added to the Senate Judiciary Committee after longtime U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. retired in January 2023 after 48 years in Washington.
The screening committee, which was ordered to provide confidentiality about the candidates and the process, conducted interviews with the candidates in January and then were asked to rank them, according to a source familiar with the process, but was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
Crawford, 69, will take Senior Status in mid-August — which allows him to preside over a limited caseload, including continuing with the elaborate cross-country murder-for-hire case from the Northeast Kingdom. A jury trial is scheduled for the final two defendants in September. It will be in either Burlington or Rutland.
Sanders, as the state’s new senior senator, is taking the lead on the selection process this time. He has appointed three people to the Judicial Nomination Advisory Panel.
Welch was allocated two seats on it, while the Vermont Bar Association was asked to provide the final two members. The VBA solicited nominations to be on the screening committee and the executive board sent names of qualified lawyers to Sanders.
The federal judicial selection process has always been part transparent and part confidential.
Nobody was selected for the screening committee from the offices that deal with the federal judges on a day-to-day basis, including the court clerk’s office, the U.S. Marshal, U.S. Probation, U.S. Attorney or the Federal Defender.
The screening committee members were Shapleigh “Shap” Smith, a Burlington lawyer and former legislator and Speaker of the House, David Silver, a Bennington defense lawyer, Lisa Shelkrot, a Burlington lawyer, Barbara Prine, staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid; Paul Burns executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group; Xusana Davis, executive director of Racial Equity for the state; Eleanor “Ella” Spottswood, a senior staff attorney with Planned Parenthood of America and chair of the state Judicial Nominating Board.
The selection process this time is slightly different from Vermont’s longstanding tradition. Leahy, who served in the senate for 48 years, normally used a nine-person merit committee. Leahy used an equal system with three selections each made by his office, the junior senator and the state bar association. The process proved to be non-partisan.
Crawford has been the chief federal judge in Vermont since 2017.
Lawyers interested in replacing Crawford had until Dec. 1 to fill out the elaborate 10-page questionnaire with multi-part detailed questions. The completed application with the typed answers and various attachments, including legal rulings, newspaper clippings, published writings and scripts of talks can easily run 100 pages or more.
Applicants also got a 1½-page list of issues that the FBI background check is likely to cover, including asking about any involvement in any group that advocates the use of force to overthrow the U.S. government, or if the applicant has traveled to Cuba.
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Categories: Court
Just ask George Soros, he can tell you who it’s going to be.
I WOULD just for fun, if he’d ever answer a lowly assistant editor.
Wow! at first glance, it certainly looks like pay-to-play, just to be on the selection committee. That committee sure looks like a who’s who of well connected Democratic Socialists™, certainly not a representative group of Vermont’s current demographic. If I had a liberal/socialist agenda I wanted to litigate, this would be a awesome way to install the Vermont version of arthur engoron to the federal bench.
The Federal Government is corrupt and has conflicting interests? The shock!
Re: Sanders and Welch, who are consulting with Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., are expected to forward their recommendation to the White House.
Like we don’t know what’s we are going to get.
This is like the blind leading the blind…
And they all fall into a ditch, because after all, that is where they think the party is at!
Love to see the feigned outrage by people that have no problem that our Supreme Court is literally payed off by the Federalist Society with the intention of bringing the country back to the 1850’s
Hardly Chris. However, if you don’t want to go back to the 1850’s, you’d better have a second look to see what the progressives bring to the table, especially in Vermont, like the Unaffordable Heating Act, or the unaffordable 25-40% increase in property taxes, or the only math that our kids understand is how to count the numbers of gender one can claim. You see? Complaining and finger pointing. It works both ways.
I can afford it just fine, no problems with gentrifying the state. Don’t hear me complaining
We don’t scare the commies here b/c they can afford to create an exclusive state just for themselves. You heard it straight from the guy’s keyboard.
All this wokeism and the environmental justice thing is nothing more than a re-imagining of redlining that the Left loves to do b/c they’ve figured out a way to masquerade it as altruism. They have their favorite tokens they elevate to the top in 6/7 figure salaries, get the lowlife ones to jump around like the militant ding dongs they are, and it all seems so “fair.”
They even use things like lakes as a reason to charge more for real estate (and taxes). These are the same people who claim no one owns the earth. But they can charge you money for merely looking at it.
Oh and thank heavens for the “multiculturalism” of importing bad actors so we can be afraid of firearms, in a state that had next to no firearm incidents besides a few accidents from knuckleheads blowing holes in their feet.
And they’ve got the public trained, too. For example, my own matriarch who cries how nice everything was in the 50’s. Safe, inexpensive… neighbors friendly and helpful. Can’t say anything about the thugs all around. She’ll feign stupidity suddenly, as if the govt was listening to her over the phone.
No, the previous era and the folks these wokies dislike were not perfect. But they sure operated waaaaay more logically and life was easy to deal with compared to the ridiculous dreams of the Left. Despite the moralizing of these demons, they are full of crap. Remember, by any means necessary is their mantra.
And don’t bother replying, demon. I never read my own press.
Nicely stated. Your bias and false outrage coupled with conjecture about the federalist society just doesn’t fall into place with USSC rulings over the last 10 years.
You are aware that this is an article about a Vermont Federal Court Judgeship position, nothing to do with the USSC? This article highlights the cronyism permeating Vermont’s politics currently. Whether you agree with the committee selection- or the committees selection matters not, it is the strong hubris exhibited by Vermont’s federal “representatives” and their staff in the process.
As Vermont continues to march toward socialism and the resulting totalitarian government, you may find that you are no longer useful to those that are in power- then treated thus. Conservatives see the result of totalitarian regimes and fight to prevent that from occurring in the US. Democrats and progressives seem to welcome such ideals- until they are no longer apparatchiks included in the nomenklatura.
Hell, some of us want to go back to the 1777’s…….maybe you don’t see the constitution as a valid document? Some of us love that little piece of paper and what is says.
Perhaps a republican form of government is no longer of any interest, a form of government that protects the smallest minority, the individual from tyranny and unjust laws?
Many think and say we are democracy, whereby we may have become one, but that was never, NEVER the intent of the founding fathers.
Most people don’t know the difference between a democracy and a republic.
Stacking the Supreme Court with like-minded, one party loyalists – what could go wrong? Speaking of the 1850’s – it wasn’t long thereafter, post-civil war, the Republic was mortgaged to the Crown and with the creation of the Federal Reserve, (thanks Woodrow Wilson!) the country became a corporation run by banksters and industrialists. From there, it’s all just non-stop wars, lies, distractions, and thievery. Indentured, indebted servitude from birth to death. Good times! Carry on!
The individuals on the selection committee says it all. Planned Parenthood, really. Bill Gates will be thrilled. Then of course you have your equity, United Nations/WED zar, professing about the new circular economy and REAL DEI. According to the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, Vermont will receive 200,000 migrants. They are putting the legislation in place this year to accommodate these people.
Christine, where did you get that information re 200,000 migrants moving to Vermont?
Vermont Futures Project associated with the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. I thought I had read 200,000 in another resource, but this link specifies 150k to 160k. This is why all our laws are being updated to give migrants the same rights as citizens as well why the New American offices are being oppressed nationally, including Vermont.
https://vtfuturesproject.org/vermont-futures-project-announces-statewide-tour-to-inform-economic-plan/
But the report doesn’t stipulate that the proposed population increase will be migrants.
On the other hand, one of the reasons the State’s equalized student numbers are as skewed as they are is because the ELL (English Language Learner) cohort has the highest cost per student. It only logically follows that the AOE is preparing for more ELL students.
With 37,000 employees and only 73,000 K-12 students, they need to expand their market one way or the other. The problem is, they don’t pay for it. The rest of us do.
She made it up because if you go to the page, there is nothing on there about 200,000 immigrants. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it clearly states on the link she provided: “Central to this work is the goal of increasing Vermont’s population to 802,000 by 2035 and increasing housing inventory to 350,000 non-seasonal units by 2035.”
The Chamber of Commerce has not stated that Vermont will receive 200,000 migrants. Just say that out loud for a minute, see how much sense it makes. In the next year, 25% of the state is going to be migrant workers entering this state, yet this is not news.
The Fix is In.
If it is in secret, it is obviously not going to be fair?
Transparency has two meanings
The first :You can see right through something .We all see this clearly
The second :In government it is to be open and honest, We know that is not the case anymore in our current government .
Wouldn’t it be great to get all those questions, answers and an open vision of the what the decision is based upon.
If it’s like running for office in the VTDem party, you have to answer all the Vermont Planned Parenthood questions 100% and then you get the money to run your campaign.
Bet we never see those questions. Maybe you just need to kiss George’s ring or willing to accept his money.
It will have little to do with upholding and defending the rule of law and the constitution, that can be assured.
Unless they bend the State Constitution to fit their means, which they are in the process of doing: usurping County control of Sheriff elections, Prop 4 “equal rights expansion” . . .
They already bent the VT constitution so bad it looks like an elbow. The State Supreme Court is as progressive as it comes.
We need a constituionalconservative judge not one selected by Soros and Dems that fail to adhere to
Their oath of office.
They’re done even pretending to care about judicial integrity.
bus from albany new york to burlington vermont every day/// anybody checking the passengers who get off the bus///
Vermont’s democracy is already on life support and with this cast of nominees being selected and promoted into the courts by Sanders, Welch, and input from Balint, now
that’s funny, our state is dead…………… The Constitution means nothing to them !!
Vermont three Stooges in DC, let’s see how this process goes and who gets the job
and if there will be any judicial integrity…………………………………Nah.
Secrecy is the general modus operandi of a politburo…just saying.
Our legislature is now made up of 80% progressive social activists not civic minded business leaders anymore. Sadly things are not going to improve until our legislature has changed hands which isn’t likely in my lifetime. Vermont is officially brain dead and now is circling the bowl soon to be flushed down into Lake Champlain.
Xusana Davis doesn’t even have full time residence in Vermont, right? What’s with all these “committees”? Everything with the name committee in it needs to be disbanded from the State immediately. Enough with the never-ending god forsaken committees already.
VPIRG and Planned Parenthood? That couldn’t POSSIBLY be a conflict of interest. Gone are the days of pretending the courts are non-partisan.
Eleanor Spottswood, I believe also doesn’t have residence in VT, right?
It took 17 seconds to verify that she lives in Burlington and has been head of the panel since 2019. You going to ask where Paul Burns lives? Of course not, he’s a white dude lol
@Chris I couldn’t find any of that in public record for “full time/homestead” residence. I see a house in NH and a house in NY owned by the two I mentioned.
I’m not a gender assuming racist bigot. Notice how I didn’t use any pronouns when I listed them? How do you know Paul Burns is a “white dude”? Are you gender assuming? How do you know whoever you are talking about is a “She”? You must be one of those Racist Trumpers.
I’m not a gender assuming racist bigot. Notice how I didn’t use any pronouns when I listed them? How do you know Paul Burns is a “white dude”? Are you gender assuming? How do you know whoever you are talking about is a “She”? You must be one of those Racist Trumpers.
The gibberish you spout here is about as good as your use of google, I’d be a little embarrassed too. Clicking the link to your name, I’d love to talk to you about the intellectual unseriousness of libertarianism with you sometime.
The person they put in is the one that promises their WEF bosses that they’ll destroy this state in the most ways possible.
People….please stop pretending there is something called ‘The CONstituition’. That fiction evaporated with the last election and the fake killer flu.
What Xusana is reading/watching/listening to these days: Counting Descent; Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution; Elite Capture: How The Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)
We the “Majority “People do not want your marxist ,illegitimate representatives any more .
VPIRG. LOL. Think about that acronym. Just a coincidence.