Nancy Abudu Confirmation Heralds End of Judicial Logjam
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18, 2023 – Today the Senate voted to confirm Nancy Gbana Abudu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. First nominated back in January 2022, Abudu’s confirmation has been delayed well over a year due to a combination of party-line opposition and the weaponization of procedural moves by Senate Republicans as well as attendance issues.
Abudu is an experienced civil rights attorney and a leading voting rights expert. She has built her career at both the ACLU and more recently at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she spearheaded the creation of the Center’s Voting Rights Practice Group and supervised litigation in both the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits. Today she becomes the first Black woman to serve on the Eleventh Circuit, the second woman of color to ever serve on the Eleventh Circuit, only the third Black judge on that circuit, and its first person of color from the state of Georgia.
Alliance for Justice President Rakim H.D. Brooks issued the following statement:
“Nancy Abudu’s confirmation has been a long time coming but we are glad to see the Senate has finally gotten her nomination across the finish line. She is an incredibly accomplished attorney and embodies the kind of diversity and commitment to equal justice still so desperately needed on our federal courts. We can only hope her confirmation breaks open the dam and portends the confirmation of so many other worthy nominees. Her confirmation also reminds us that many other states and jurisdictions are not as lucky as to have senators like Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. That is why we must end the blue slip so we can see more distinguished nominees like this on every court across the country. There is no time — and no reason — to wait.”