Judith Rogers

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Judith Ann Wilson Rogers is a judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She joined the Court in 1994 after being nominated by former President Bill Clinton (D). Rogers assumed senior status on September 1, 2022.^[1]

Bradley Garcia was nominated by President Joe Biden to replace Rogers on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Biography

Education

Rogers graduated from Radcliffe College with her bachelor's degree in 1961 and later received a Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1964. Rogers received her Master of Laws degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1988.^[2]

Professional career

1994-present: Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- 2022-present: Senior judge
- 1994 - 2022: Judge
1979-1994: Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals
- 1988-1994: Chief judge
1979-1983: Corporation counsel, Washington, D.C.
1979: Assistant city administrator, Intergovernmental Relations, Washington, D.C.
1974-1979: Special assistant for legislation, Office of the Mayor of Washington, D.C.
1972-1974: Legislative program coordinator, Office of the Mayor of Washington, D.C.
1971-1972: General counsel, Congressional Commission on the Organization of the District Government
1969-1971: Trial attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
1968-1969: Staff attorney, Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, San Francisco, California
1965-1968: Assistant United States attorney, Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia
1964-1965: Law clerk, Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia^[2]

Judicial career

D.C. Circuit

On the recommendation of the at-large Congressional delegation for the District of Columbia, Rogers was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by former President Bill Clinton on November 17, 1993, to a seat vacated by Clarence Thomas. Thomas had been appointed to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Rogers was confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 1994, on a Senate voice vote and received her commission on March 11, 1994.^[3]

Noteworthy cases

SCOTUS to hear case challenging Chevron deference (2023)

The U.S. Supreme Court on May 1, 2023, agreed to hear Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case that could clarify the court’s approach to Chevron deference.^[4]

Commercial fishermen in the case appealed an August 2022 ruling from a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that applied Chevron deference to uphold the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) interpretation of a federal fishery law allowing the use of compliance monitors on certain fishing boats. While the federal law is silent on who must pay for the use of such monitors, the judges deferred to the NMFS’ interpretation of the statute requiring fishermen to pay costs for the use of compliance monitors. “Although the Act may not unambiguously resolve whether the Service can require industry-funded monitoring,” wrote Judge Judith Rogers in the opinion, “the Service's interpretation of the Act as allowing it to do so is reasonable.”^[4]^[5]

The fisherman appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the D.C. Circuit’s decision “perceives ambiguity in statutory silence, where the logical explanation for the statutory silence is that Congress did not intend to grant the agency such a dangerous and uncabined authority.” The fishermen further urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its approach to Chevron deference, stating, “Whether by clarifying Chevron or overruling it, this Court should grant review and reverse the clear agency overreach at issue here.”^[6]

Affordable Care Act enactment process was constitutional (2014)

In late July 2014, the D.C. Circuit dismissed a case challenging Affordable Care Act based on how it was enacted. The plaintiffs, Pacific Legal Foundation, made their challenge based on the constitutional requirement that all revenue bills originate in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the case of the Affordable Care Act, the Senate took a House bill, kept its number, but removed everything else and inserted its own bill.

The three-judge panel, consisting of Judges Rogers, Robert Leon Wilkins, and Cornelia T. L. Pillard, decided that, at its heart, the law is not intended to be a tax, but instead was meant to promote the purchase of health insurance and decrease the number of uninsured people in the nation. The judges noted that while there was a tax penalty for not obtaining health insurance, the panel held that the penalty was secondary to the true intent of the law.

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