U.S. Senate votes narrowly to confirm Sarah Davenport as NM's newest federal judge

SANTA FE — The U.S. Senate voted 52-45 on Thursday to confirm Sarah Davenport as New Mexico’s newest federal judge.

The confirmation vote comes amid a push by Senate Democrats to fill judicial vacancies before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Davenport was nominated in August by President Joe Biden to fill a looming vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.

She will effectively replace the state’s top federal judge, William P. Johnson, who was nominated to the federal bench in 2001 by then-President George W. Bush and plans to retire in January.

However, Davenport’s judgeship will be based in Las Cruces rather than Albuquerque, according to the White House.

New Mexico’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, lauded Thursday’s confirmation vote.

“Sarah Davenport has built an impressive legal career as a federal prosecutor in New Mexico and has strong roots in her home community of Las Cruces,” the two senators said in a joint statement. “We are proud to have secured Ms. Davenport’s confirmation and look forward to her serving the District of New Mexico, delivering justice, and upholding the rule of law.”

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond school of law, said Davenport’s confirmation was not a surprise, describing her as a “well qualified, mainstream nominee who had a smooth hearing and strong home state senator support.”

The Thursday vote comes as Senate Democrats have been forging ahead with filling judicial vacancies nationwide before losing their narrow majority in January.

As of this week, the number of confirmed judicial nominees since Biden took office in 2021 was at 226 — or only a few less than the 234 judicial nominees confirmed during Trump’s first term as president.

Davenport, who is the fourth federal judge appointed by Biden in New Mexico, has previously worked as an assistant attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico since 2009.

In that role, she has focused on prosecuting complex, multi-defendant criminal cases, such as a drug trafficking case that involved large quantities of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine from Mexico that were distributed in several states, including New Mexico.

The U.S. Senate vote on Davenport’s nomination broke down largely along party lines, with two Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — joining Democrats in voting in support of her confirmation.

Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat-turned-independent, also voted in favor of Davenport’s confirmation.

Davenport is expected to be sworn in to her new judgeship in the coming days, and could begin hearing cases by next month.