The United States Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm President Biden's nomination of Judge Florence Pan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Pan will fill the seat that belonged to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was sworn into the Supreme Court of the United States on June 30. Pan will be the first Chinese American to serve on that court.
Pan is currently presiding over the U.S. V. Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGAA, et al.—the Department of Justice's attempt to block Penguin Random House's purchase of Simon & Schuster on antitrust grounds—in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Should either party appeal Pan's pending decision in the case, which is expected sometime this fall, the appeal will be heard in the D.C. Circuit, and Pan would recuse herself from hearing the case.
Pan was elevated into the seat by a vote of 52-38, which fell largely along party lines. 45 Democratic senators and independents Bernie Sanders and Angus King voted yea, as did five Republican senators, with all nay votes coming from the Republican camp. Three Democratic senators and seven Republicans abstained.
Biden nominated Pan to the seat in May, the second time he had chosen her to succeed Jackson in a seat; her seat on the D.C. district court, which she assumed last year, was also previously held by Jackson.
