By Nate Raymond
Nov 10 (Reuters) - The White House withdrew and replaced one of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees on Tuesday, after opposition from Republican senators cast doubt on his ability to fill a key US appeals court seat before Democrats take control of the Senate.
The White House said Trump rescinded Arkansas-based US District Judge Lee Rudofsky's nomination to the St. Louis-based 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals and instead nominated Arkansas Supreme Court Justice J. Cody Hiland.
The White House and Senate Republicans are racing to confirm as many new judges as possible before Democrats take control of the Senate in January after winning at least 54 seats in the November 3 midterm elections.
Trump appointed Rudofsky as a federal district court judge in Little Rock in 2019, and prominent conservative lawyers had supported his decision in August to try to elevate the judge to the 8th Circuit when a seat opened up.
The appeals court hears cases from federal courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. If Trump secured another appointee on it, 10 of its 11 active judges would have been appointed by Republican presidents and 6 by Trump himself.
But Rudofsky's prospects dimmed after the election as reports emerged that Arkansas' two Republican senators, John Boozman and Tom Cotton, favored someone else to fill the Arkansas seat on the court.
Their opposition drew attention after Mike Davis, a Trump ally at conservative legal activist group Article III Project, accused them on Friday in a social media post of committing an "unforgivable sin" by jeopardizing the seat by blocking Rudofsky.
Hiland, who has served on Arkansas' top state court since 2023, said at an August event at a law school in Arkansas that he had expected to receive the appeals court nomination but was instead offered a federal district judgeship.
"And so, being belligerent at times, I said no," Hiland told the crowd, according to a video. "That is not a position that I'm interested in."
Hiland and the senators did not respond to requests for comment.
Rudofsky said in a statement that "the reality is that, without the support of my home-state senators, confirmation is simply not a practical possibility in today's Senate."
"I will be forever grateful to President Trump for the honor of his nomination," he said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
