WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) -- Robert Leon Wilkins, one of three nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday.
According to reports, Wilkins, who has served as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since 2010, sailed through the confirmation hearing.
Instead of spending much of the time attacking President Barack Obama's nominees to the court and his plan to "pack" the court -- as they have done previously -- members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee simply submitted those arguments for the record.
Senators didn't even question Wilkins on his controversial decision, as a member of a three-judge panel, refusing to allow Texas to implement its voter identification law, The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times reported.
Wilkins, along with Cornelia "Nina" Pillard and Patricia Millett, were nominated to the federal appeals court by Obama in June.
Millett's hearing, held earlier in July, also went smoothly by all accounts.
According to reports, there was no criticism of Millett herself -- even Republicans noted she had strong credentials -- only of the D.C. Circuit and Obama.
Pillard's hearing, held weeks later, did not go as well.
GOP senators reportedly grilled the nominee, who currently serves as a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, taking aim at her academic writings because of her lack of judicial experience.
Millett, who heads Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP's Supreme Court practice and co-heads the firm's national appellate practice, made it through the judiciary committee last month.
In a roll call vote held Aug. 1, committee members sent Millett's nomination to the full Senate. The 10-8 vote was along party lines, with all GOP senators voting against her nomination.
The committee is expected to vote on Pillard's confirmation next week.
No timeline has been set for a committee vote on Wilkins' confirmation.
Currently, there are three vacancies on the court, which is considered by some to be the second most important in the country, after the Supreme Court.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at jessica@legalnewsline.com.