John Hult, South Dakota Searchlight
Two nominees for federal judgeships in South Dakota told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that they’d apply the law fairly and equally, with an eye to court precedence and balance.
It was the first appearance in Washington, D.C., for Eric Schulte and Camela Theeler, both of Sioux Falls, since their official nominations to replace retiring U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier in Sioux Falls and retired U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken in Rapid City, respectively.
Viken retired at the end of October after nearly two years on senior status, which means a lower caseload. Schreier announced her intention to retire or take senior status in January, pending the confirmation of her replacement.
The nominees have been shepherded through the nomination process recently by South Dakota Republican Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds. Their involvement is unique, in that Democratic presidents typically rely on either Democratic elected federal officials or a state Democratic party to field nominees for federal judicial vacancies.
The initial candidates presented to the Biden administration did not make it through to a formal nomination. Thune and Rounds threw their support behind Theeler and Schulte last fall, with an eye to filling judgeships as cases in the court’s federal docket began to back up.
On Wednesday, Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, thanked Rounds and Thune for their willingness to work with the Biden administration “on a bipartisan basis” to address the federal judicial openings in South Dakota.
Both Rounds and Thune remarked on the candidates’ status as lifelong South Dakotans, respected jurists and leaders in the state’s legal community.
Theeler is a state circuit judge in the second circuit; Schulte is an attorney in private practice with Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz, and Smith in Sioux Falls.
“I believe both will exercise judicial restraint and apply the laws as written,” Rounds told the committee.
In his introductory remarks, Thune said he thinks both nominees “have the character and impartiality to serve lifetime appointments on the federal bench.”
Schulte and Theeler were two of four nominees presented to the committee on Wednesday.
The others, nominees for positions in New York and California, each faced critical questioning from GOP committee members on topics like their previous legal work, their membership in nonprofit organizations that support diversity, their work on pardons and on specific opinions they’d written.
Schulte and Theeler did not receive such scrutiny. The only question directed at one of them specifically, rather than at all four nominees, came from Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.
She asked Schulte about his poetry. Schulte’s work has been featured in South Dakota’s “Pasque Petals” poetry journal.
“I continuously encourage my staff, and it applies to myself, to be creative, and to refer to the arts as a way to maintain a certain equilibrium,” said Hirono, who said she had copies of some of Schulte’s work. “Is that what poetry does for you?”
“Indeed it does, Senator,” said Schulte, who called himself “an amateur poet” and told the committee that his lifelong love of poetry relaxes him and stimulates his mind.
All four nominees, in response to a question from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, each said they see social media as a potentially deleterious influence on America’s youth.
Fifteen years ago, Theeler said, she gave talks on social media’s influence in her practice of employment law.
“Certainly it has evolved well beyond where it was when I was making those speeches,” Theeler said. “I certainly recognize the issue, and I’d agree with my fellow nominees, that it is an important policy issue. And I’m glad that Congress is looking at it.”
Schulte told Graham that social media has changed the work of civil litigators, and that “things are more public now than I could have ever imagined when I started practicing law.”
“With respect to policy decisions, I would, of course, defer to this committee,” Schulte said.
The South Dakota nominees also addressed the importance of court-appointed attorneys, interpreters in courtrooms and the primacy of the First Amendment, among other topics.
The committee did not cast any votes on the nominees Wednesday. A spokesperson for the committee said the vote on the nominees who appeared Wednesday will likely occur in April. If Schulte and Theeler are approved by the committee, their nominations would head to the full Senate for confirmation.