Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson is one step closer to serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
On a party-line vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 Thursday, with three abstentions, to refer Robinson’s nomination to a full Senate floor vote. President Joe Biden nominated Robinson to the federal court in August. If confirmed, she would be the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to serve on a federal appellate court.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised Robinson at Thursday’s hearing, saying she “has probably the broadest type of support I’ve ever seen … and I’ve had some wonderful nominees from Vermont come here.”
“Most of us wish we could have this kind of support in our state,” he said. “She has the support of our Republican governor, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, the unanimous vote in our Legislature — every Democrat, every Republican voted for her.”
Leahy, who is the most senior member of the Judiciary Committee, personally recommended Robinson for Biden’s consideration for the opening. The Second Circuit, covering federal appeals from New York, Connecticut and Vermont, is an especially influential judicial post.
Robinson, 56, has served on the Vermont Supreme Court since 2011. She is well-known for her legal work and lobbying to legalize same-sex marriage in Vermont in 2009, years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.
“Her tireless advocacy served as a blueprint for LGBTQ advocacy across the country,” Leahy said in his written statement to the committee. “It is no exaggeration to say that Justice Robinson changed the trajectory of LGBTQ rights in this country, and bent the arc of our nation’s history toward justice.”
Leahy’s Republican colleagues did not share his enthusiasm; all but two voted no, and those two abstained from voting.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., took particular issue with a case Robinson argued as an attorney decades ago, representing a Catholic woman who sought to print abortion-rights pamphlets. The owners of a printing press, who were also Catholic, refused to print the pamphlets, telling the woman her beliefs on abortion were at odds with her faith.
When questioned on the lawsuit at a hearing in September, Robinson told senators, “If the facts showed that (the printing press) declined to print the placard because of their opposition to abortion — rather than their belief that her strain of Catholic faith was wrong — then she wouldn’t have a claim.”
Hawley called Robinson’s reasoning “really, really disturbing,” and said Robinson’s characterization of the defendants in her written arguments from the time was “really a slur on those good folks and a slur on religious believers who are just following the teachings of their church, as they were in this case.”
Leahy shot back at Hawley, saying he knows “a lot about Catholic printers in Vermont,” as his Catholic parents owned Leahy Press in Montpelier, and he still strongly supports Robinson.
No date has been set for a full Senate vote on Robinson’s nomination.
