Senate Judiciary Committee Receives Paperwork for Grayson Lambert's Federal Judgeship, Hearing Expected November 10 or 18
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has received paperwork allowing it to consider Grayson Lambert, chief legal counsel to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, for a federal judgeship in the state in the coming weeks, a spokesperson for the committee's chair, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, said on Monday, October 26, according to Reuters. The White House is backing Lambert to fill a judicial vacancy in South Carolina.
President Donald Trump has not publicly announced that he is nominating Lambert or formally done so. A White House official said on Monday that it was not announcing any new judicial nominees at this time. Governor McMaster's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lambert's nomination was first reported by the online newsletter Nomination Notes.
Lambert's nomination will likely be taken up at one of the two post-election hearings the Republican-led Judiciary Committee has scheduled for November 10 and November 18 to hear from pending judicial nominees; eight other nominees are also awaiting hearings. Senate Republicans are gearing up to confirm as many Trump-nominated judges as possible in the weeks after the November 3 midterm elections, which will decide whether Trump's Republican Party retains control of both houses of Congress.
Lambert has worked in Governor McMaster's office since May 2021, rising to become the governor's chief legal counsel in September 2025. He previously worked in private practice and clerked for Judge Dennis Shedd of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
As a lawyer for the state, Lambert has argued a series of cases advancing conservative legal positions. After the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 ended the nationwide right to abortion, he successfully argued before the South Carolina Supreme Court in 2023 to defend the state's ban on most abortions after about six weeks. In 2024, he convinced the same court to rule that the state's electrocution and firing squad execution methods are not cruel or unusual punishments under the state constitution. More recently, he has been involved in defending the Republican-led state's decision to share voter registration information with the Trump administration's Justice Department.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于 Columbia 的 Strom Thurmond 联邦大楼兼美国联邦法院大楼（w_lemay 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons）
