President Trump’s nominee to replace Eight Circuit Judge Mack Traynor is North Dakota Solicitor General Phil Axt. Axt is a fifth-generation North Dakotan and a Yale Law graduate who went to West Point and served in the Army. He clerked for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the Fifth Circuit, worked at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and spent time as a legal fellow in the office of North Dakota Senator John Hoeven (R.).
The District of North Dakota is critically important. As the most conservative district court in the potentially most conservative circuit, it has been and will be a go-to venue for litigation by conservatives against the federal government.
Axt’s time as state solicitor general means that he is perfectly prepared to evaluate such cases. As the great Senator Kevin Cramer said upon Axt’s nomination, “Phil knows the people, communities, and values which make North Dakota special. He became solicitor general as the Biden regulatory assault was at its height and fought tirelessly to uphold the rights reserved to the state by the Tenth Amendment and under the principles of cooperative federalism.” He went on:
From his days growing up on a farm near McClusky to the U.S. Army, and through the classrooms at Yale, this young man from North Dakota never lost sight of the law and Constitution guiding us. Phil has big shoes to fill, but I know he will bring the same dedication and integrity to the bench.