Trump announces Kavanaugh replacement for DC circuit court

President Trump announced Tuesday he is nominating Neomi Rao to fill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s vacant seat on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Rao currently serves as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

She is a vocal advocate of Trump’s efforts to slash government regulations, crediting them with stimulating job growth.

“I think the reform efforts are part of what has stimulated economic growth and job creation and promoted technological innovation. And from my perspective, our reform efforts have really focused on promoting the rule of law and emphasized the productivity and potential of the American people that’s possible when you get rid of unnecessary economic burdens,” Rao said at an American Bar Association conference earlier this month.

Kavanaugh, who at the time was a judge on the D.C. circuit court, was confirmed to the Supreme Court after a contentious process that saw several women publicly accuse him of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.

The D.C. circuit court is often considered the nation’s second-most important court, behind the Supreme Court. It has served as a launching pad for other Supreme Court justices in addition to Kavanaugh, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia.

Due to its location, the court regularly hears cases challenging federal government actions, including agency rulemakings.

Rao had previously been floated as a possible replacement for Kavanaugh on the court.

“The D.C. Circuit has a docket that’s very heavy on administrative law and that’s an area Neomi has a lot of experience in,” Joshua Blackman, an associate professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, told The Hill last month.

Rao is a former clerk for Justice Thomas and worked as a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School before she was confirmed to run OIRA in 2017 by a 54-41 Senate vote.

Eveything from Wiki:

Neomi Jehangir Rao (born March 22, 1973) is an American lawyer, academic, and government official who currently serves as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Before assuming her current role, Rao was an associate professor of law and the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Her research and teaching focused on constitutional and administrative law.

Education and legal career

Rao was born to mother Zerin Rao and father Jehangir Narioshang Rao, both Parsi physicians from India, and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she was educated at Detroit Country Day School (class of 1991). After graduating from Yale University with highest distinction in ethics, politics, economics, and philosophy, Rao attended the University of Chicago Law School, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and received her J.D. in 2000. She was the comment editor of the University of Chicago Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy for the Symposium edition. Rao clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas[5] from 2001 to 2002, and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2000 to 2001.

After her clerkships, she practiced public international law and arbitration at British law firm Clifford Chance in London, United Kingdom. During the second term of the presidency of George W. Bush, Rao worked in the White House counsel’s office and as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Later, she became a professor at George Mason University School of Law (subsequently renamed the Antonin Scalia Law School, a change for which she advocated), where she received tenure in 2012. In 2015, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

She is a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and the governing council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, where she co-chairs the section’s regulatory policy committee. She is a member of the Federalist Society.
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator

On April 7, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Rao to become the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget. Former OIRA Administrator Susan Dudley described Rao as “an excellent choice to lead OIRA...In addition to a sharp legal mind, she brings an openness to different perspectives and an ability to manage the competing demands of regulatory policy.” Legal commentator and law professor Jonathan H. Adler wrote that “Trump’s selection of Rao suggests the administration is serious about regulatory reform, not merely reducing high-profile regulatory burdens.” Rao was confirmed to the position by the United States Senate on July 10, 2017.

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