Bridget Bade

Trump nominated Bridget Bade to the Ninth Circuit in 2018. Prior to her confirmation, Bade served as a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Her record as a magistrate judge consisted largely of issuing orders, reports, and recommendations. The vast majority of the reports and recommendations deal with procedural issues stemming from cases before district court judges. At the time of her nomination, AFJ wrote, “It is notable for someone to be elevated directly from a magistrate judge position to a circuit court seat.” Since her appointment to the Ninth Circuit, she has joined other Trump judges to fight civil rights and protections for workers and immigrants. She would have upheld a district court ruling that a low-income Walmart employee should pay the company’s legal expenses arising from his age discrimination lawsuit. Bade also dissented from a decision requiring the Bureau of Immigration Appeals to reconsider a Vietnamese asylum-seeker’s testimony about her alleged abuse and sexual assault. 

Her record as a Circuit Court judge is no better. Recently, she dissented from a decision to overturn an injunction against ICE relying solely on its own (sometimes faulty) databases to determine whether arrested individuals were American citizens or non-citizens subject to immigration holds. The majority remanded for the lower court to reconsider whether all ICE databases are unreliable, or only some of them. Bade would have made a bad decision even worse by holding that injunctive relief against ICE’s use of faulty databases is a Congressionally-barred remedy, regardless of how unreliable those databases are

The Alliance for Justice strongly opposes the consideration of Bridget Bade for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Read more on Bade’s background.

Bridget Bade Up Next in Trump Wave of Appeals Court Judges

On August 27, 2018, President Trump nominated Bridget Bade to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to fill the seat of Judge Barry G. Silverman, who assumed senior status in 2016. Alliance for Justice recommends that the Senate Judiciary Committee carefully review Bade’s record before putting her in a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Biography

Bridget
Bade graduated from Arizona State University in 1987 and
Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in 1990. After law
school, Bade served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. From 1991 to 1995, Bade worked as a trial
attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Division’s
Environmental Torts Litigation Section.

Bade practiced
as a Shareholder from 1995 to 2005 at Beshears Wallwork Bellamy. She continued
as Special Counsel from 2005 to 2006 when the firm merged with Steptoe &
Johnson. Following her time in private practice, Bade was an Assistant United
States Attorney from 2006 to 2012 in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
District of Arizona.

U.S.
Magistrate Judge

In 2012, Bade
was appointed to be a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Arizona. She currently serves in that position. It is notable for
someone to be elevated directly from a magistrate judge position to a circuit
court seat.

Bade’s record as
a magistrate judge consists largely of issuing orders, reports, and
recommendations. The vast majority of the reports and recommendations deal with
procedural issues stemming from cases before district court judges. In her
Senate Judiciary Questionnaire, Bade indicated that she has presided over four
cases that have gone to verdict or judgment: one civil jury trial, one civil
bench trial, and two criminal bench trials.

During her time as a magistrate judge, Bade has spoken frequently at public events. Some of her speaking engagements include several introductory speeches at Federal Bar Association events where she has spoken on topics including the 14th Amendment, Japanese internment, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

Conclusion

The Senate
Judiciary Committee should carefully examine Bade’s record before putting her
in a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.