Judge Vaden Details His Nomination Process to Trade Court
Judge Stephen Vaden never sought his nomination to the Court of International Trade. Rather, during a trip to San Francisco while serving as general counsel to USDA, he got an intriguing phone call. Using his deductive powers, Vaden knew the call could only have originated from one place: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Walking on the streets of San Francisco, he waited until he could slip back into his hotel to take the call, because who takes a call from the White House on the street?
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On the other end, a staffer was grilling Vaden on all things trade. The questions were not totally out of the blue, since agriculture and trade are often linked, particularly in President Donald Trump's age of offense in the trade policy realm. Speaking to the Heritage Foundation's SCOTUS101 podcast, Vaden explained that given the U.S.'s massive surplus in agriculture trade, when the U.S. got aggressive with its trade policy, foreign countries hit back where it hurt: our bellies.
The questions continued until Vaden eventually tried to sniff out the purpose for the call. Expecting to be asked to serve as the administration's face for the trade-related aspects of its agriculture policy, Vaden was surprised to discover that the call was actually meant to gauge his interest in serving a lifetime appointment at CIT, the judge told Heritage. He asked for some time to think about it, then used that leave to talk to many different trusted voices about the prospect. They all resoundingly told him to take the job. He agreed, and the rest is history with his confirmation making it official in November 2020.
Giving a rare interview, Vaden sat down with the SCOTUS101 podcast to discuss his process of being nominated to the trade court, his time at Yale Law School and how the court functions. The judge also was asked a lighter question: if he could have a conversation with any judge dead or alive, who would it be and what would they talk about? His response was Byron White, a former pro football player and Supreme Court Justice from the 1960s to 1990s.
Vaden said that White was someone who could be seen as a "model justice," given his principles and record of doing the job regardless of what came before him. "If you look at his jurisprudence, he was very moderate to conservative in how he voted," Vaden said. "... He's the only appointee of a Democratic president to have the record that he does, so I would like to know more about what shaped his philosophy, why he ruled the way he did, and why, when so many justices tend to go the other way over time, why he maintained his moderation to business conservatism, I guess we'll call it, in terms of his outlook and his legal philosophy throughout his tenure."
Vaden said he respects White's view on how the Supreme Court should work, since Vaden believes the Supreme Court takes too few cases. White was famous for voting for cert in any case in which two different circuit courts differed. "If you believe, as I think you must, that federal law by its very nature should apply to someone in California the same way it applies to someone in New York or Tennessee, we should not tolerate and the Supreme Court should not tolerate a difference in application of federal law between circuits," the judge said. "That's what it's there to do in both the sexy, and far more common, the unsexy cases. Judge White was committed to that, and I respect that."