This morning the American Bar Association rated Third Circuit nominee David Porter as “qualified.” The rating committee’s vote was unanimous. Link here.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary rates judicial nominees as well qualified, qualified, or not qualified. Stephanos Bibas was rated well-qualified, as have been most of President Trump’s circuit nominees. (And as was Rebecca Haywood.) Other circuit nominees rated qualified were John Bush for the Sixth Circuit, Ryan Bounds for the Ninth Circuit, and Britt Grant for the Eleventh Circuit; Steven Grasz for the Eighth Circuit was rated not qualified with one abstention.

Porter’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is tomorrow morning.

Also today, Tracie Mauriello has an excellent article on Porter’s nomination in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, link here. It begins, “David Porter will almost certainly join the bench of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the …  Trump judicial nominee first will have to run a gantlet of angry Democrats who believe he never should have gotten this far in the confirmation process.”

UPDATE: the last time a Third Circuit nominee was confirmed with an ABA rating of Qualified or below was Judge Fuentes in 1999. While unconfirmed G.W. Bush nominee Shalom Stone was rated Qualified, all of G.W. Bush’s and Obama’s confirmed Third Circuit nominees were at least majority Well Qualified.

But outside the Third Circuit there have been plenty of Qualified circuit judges confirmed in recent administrations, notably Jane Kelly for the Eighth Circuit, William Pryor for the Eleventh Circuit, and Janice Rogers Brown for the D.C. Circuit.

UPDATE 2: Andy Simpson, a fine Virgin Islands appeals lawyer and President-elect of the Third Circuit Bar Association, offers this thoughtful response to my post:

I suggest that you are putting too much emphasis on ABA ratings.

Current SCOTUS CJ John Roberts was given a Q for his nomination to the DC Circuit
Current SCOTUS J Sonia Sotomayor was given a majority Q, minority WQ for her nomination to the SDNY
Judge McKee was given a majority Q, minority NQ for his nomination to the Third Circuit

Three circuit stalwarts, Richard A. Posner, Frank H. Easterbrook and J. Harvie Wilkinson III were in the same boat as Judge McKee: All received majority Q, minority NQ ratings for their circuit nominations.

I basically agree with Andy. I meant the WQ-vs-Q stuff above mainly for nerdy curiosity, not to suggest it’s a big deal. As I posted on Twitter, “Bottom line, I think the Qualified rating is good-enough news for supporters of Porter’s nomination and another reason to believe he is on the path to being confirmed.”