Biden D.C. Circuit nominee Garcia, 36, defends experience

July 27 (Reuters) - A 36-year-old Biden administration nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday defended his experience and legal work in private practice amid questions from U.S. Senate Republicans at a hearing about his fitness to serve on the federal bench.

Nominee Bradley Garcia appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where panelists grilled him about his years in practice and pro bono client work when he was a partner at the large U.S. law firm O'Melveny & Myers in cases including a challenge to restrictions on abortion rights.

Garcia would join the D.C. Circuit from the U.S. Justice Department, where he's worked in the legal counsel's office since 2021.

"You would be the youngest judge in the D.C. Circuit for decades," Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said.

"Do you believe you are the best person most qualified for the job?" Cruz asked.

Garcia responded: "I certainly wouldn't call myself the best of anything, but I'm very happy to be judged based on my record."

Garcia, nominated last month, would become the first Latino judge to serve on the D.C. Circuit.

Committee members on Wednesday also considered Dana Douglas, a U.S. magistrate judge in Louisiana who was nominated to serve on the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, and several picks for U.S. district courts. Douglas, if confirmed, would become the first woman of color on the conservative New Orleans-based court.

Douglas and Garcia did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Wednesday.

Garcia told the committee he has argued 13 appeals in U.S. appellate courts and in the Supreme Court, and litigated more than 50 appeals. Garcia was on the O'Melveny team in 2020 that successfully challenged at the Supreme Court restrictions Louisiana had placed on doctors providing abortion procedures.

Defending Garcia, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat, highlighted Trump-era U.S. appeals court nominees who were either in their early 30s or who had not been judges prior to their nominations. Former Williams & Connolly partner Allison Jones Rushing, now serving on the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit, was 36 and not a judge at the time of her nomination in 2018.

Douglas faced fewer questions from Republicans than did Garcia, a former O'Melveny appellate partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., office who previously clerked in 2012 for Justice Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Democratic-controlled Senate so far has confirmed 17 of the Biden administration's nominees to federal appeals courts. Garcia and Douglas are among 15 circuit court nominees who are awaiting further action either at the committee or before the full Senate.