On behalf of our hundreds of thousands of supporters and activists nationwide, People For the American Way opposes the nomination of Andrew Davis to be a federal judge in the Western District of Texas. His record of undermining democracy and harming ordinary Americans is not that of someone who can be trusted to protect the rights and freedom of all people.
Introduction
The federal courts are essential to providing the checks and balances needed to prevent tyranny. At present, they are the only branch of the federal government carrying out this essential function. As we explained in detail in a May 30, 2025, letter to the Judiciary Committee[i], a president who defies court orders and threatens judges should not be allowed to name anyone to the one branch of the federal government that is checking his power.
Events since then have only strengthened our case. For instance, an extensively-documented whistleblower complaint revealed that senior Justice Department official Emil Bove suggested in March that the administration violate court orders.[ii] President Trump subsequently nominated Bove to a seat on the Third Circuit, to which he was confirmed. The administration now routinely defies the courts. In fact, a July study revealed that the Trump administration had defied one in three judges who had ruled against him.[iii]
Nationwide concern over the Trump administration’s deceptive filings and court defiance continues to grow. The administration even risks losing the “presumption of regularity,” in which judges presume that the federal government and its lawyers are telling the truth and acting in good faith.[iv] Indeed, an October 2025 report revealed dozens of instances of judges expressing distrust in the government’s representations, as well as growing concerns within the federal bench about noncompliance with judicial orders.[v]
And in November 2025, a sitting federal judge nominated by President Reagan resigned from his lifetime position in order to speak frankly and in depth about Trump’s threat to the rule of law. Mark L. Wolf wrote:
I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.[vi]
Later that same month, President Trump even called for the execution of members of Congress for stating the undisputed legal fact that members of the military may not follow unlawful orders.[vii]
In January 2026 alone, the Trump administration violated nearly 100 court orders relating to ICE’s reign of terror in the Minneapolis area that led to brutal killings of American citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good. These orders were issued to protect the people of Minnesota from unlawful abuses of power by ICE. On January 28, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz released a list of those violated orders.[viii] He wrote:
[It] identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted.
This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law.[ix]
Indeed, it should. What should also give people pause – no matter their political beliefs – is the idea that the Senate would continue to confirm the judicial nominees of a president at the center of this assault on the rule of law, who will determine if he and his administration will be held accountable to the law and the Constitution.
This president is dangerously unqualified to be making lifetime appointments to the one branch of government that is in a position to provide checks and balances to his lawless actions.
Moreover, the record of this particular nominee also raises deep concerns.
Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis spent three years as an associate at Gibson Dunn representing business interests in commercial litigation. He left that position in 2017 to carry out the far-right policies of the Texas state government as assistant solicitor general. He then took an even more directly political role as chief counsel for Sen. Ted Cruz. In 2022, he returned to advancing business interests as a partner at the law firm of Lehotsky Keller Cohn.
Davis has used his abilities as a lawyer to weaken our democracy. He represented Fox News in Dominion Voting System’s high-profile defamation lawsuit against the network.[x] Dominion had sued Fox for lying about the company as part of Trump’s massive disinformation campaign casting doubt on the 2020 election. This was part of his scheme to unlawfully remain in power despite losing reelection, ending the American tradition of peaceful transfers of power at the national level.
Davis also defended Texas’s congressional and state house redistricting schemes that a three-judge lower court unanimously found had been adopted with the intent to discriminate against people of color. Although that decision was reversed by a narrow 5-4 Supreme Court majority, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent bluntly called out the majority for distorting the facts and the law in order to achieve the result they wanted. As she noted, the targeted voters' “ability to exercise meaningfully their right to vote has been burdened by the manipulation of district lines specifically designed to target their communities and minimize their political will.”[xi]
Davis has also helped powerful corporations harm consumers and working people. For instance, he helped take away Austin workers’ right to paid sick leave. The state’s capital city had passed a local ordinance protecting working people by requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. After influential corporate interests including the Texas Association of Business and the National Federation of Independent Business sued the city, the state solicitor general’s office intervened on their side. Arguing for state officials, Davis argued that the paid sick leave ordinance was actually a minimum wage law and, therefore, preempted by the state’s own minimum wage law. Reversing a lower court, a state appeals court agreed and enjoined enforcement of the law.[xii]
Davis also represented Mercedes-Benz in what became known as “Dieselgate.” He defended the car manufacturer in numerous lawsuits that arose after the discovery of “defeat devices” that made its cars measure as less polluting than they actually were during emissions testing. Consumers purchased cars falsely marketed as being more fuel-efficient and less environmentally damaging than they actually were. In December 2025, the company agreed to pay up to $150 million in a settlement with 48 states.[xiii]
In addition, Davis has shown hostility to efforts by Congress to empower ordinary people against fraud and deception by businesses. He filed an amicus brief for the Center for Constitutional Responsibility in Acheson Hotels v. Laufer. That case asked whether civil rights testers under the Americans with Disabilities Act have Article III standing to sue businesses that violate the law. Davis’s brief sought to undermine civil rights testers through a different argument: that they unconstitutionally exercise Article II enforcement power that belongs to the executive branch, not private individuals. His brief specifically cited other federal laws with similar Article II “problems,” including “environmental laws with private citizen suit provisions.”[xiv]
Conclusion
At this precarious time for the American people, we urge senators to oppose the confirmation of Andrew Davis to a lifetime position as a federal judge.
[i] https://www.peoplefor.org/sites/default/files/downloads/2025-06/Hermandorfer_and_4_MO_noms-opposition_letter.pdf.
[ii] “Justice Dept. Leader Suggested Violating Court Orders, Whistle-Blower Says,” New York Times, June 24, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/justice-department-emil-bove-trump-deportations-reuveni.html.
[iii] “Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against him,” Washington Post, July 21, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/21/trump-court-orders-defy-noncompliance-marshals-judges.
[iv] See, e.g., David French, “How a Trump Judge Exposed the Trump Con,” New York Times, Oct. 12, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/opinion/trump-judge-immergut-portland-national-guard.html; “Judges Openly Doubt Government as Justice Dept. Misleads and Dodges Orders,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/trump-justice-department-judges-courts.html.
[v] “"The ‘Presumption of Regularity’ in Trump Administration Litigation,” Just Security, updated Oct. 15, 2025, https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-trump-administration-litigation.
[vi] “Why I Am Resigning,” Judge Mark L. Wolf, The Atlantic, Nov, 9, 2025, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/federal-judge-resignation-trump/684845.
[vii] “Trump says Democrats’ message to military is ‘seditious behavior’ punishable by death,” Associated Press, Nov. 20, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-military-traitors-sedition-illegal-orders-c5fc3c5bd2fbc6b1204550e4203c24b2.
[viii] “ICE is not a law unto itself,’ Minnesota judge says after immigrant released following contempt threat,” CNBC, Jan. 28, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/ice-immigrant-minnesota-contempt-released.html.
[ix] Juan v. Noem, Case No. 26-CV-0107 (PJS/DLM), order of Jan. 28, 2026, https:// storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230171/gov.uscourts.mnd.230171.10.0_2.pdf .
[x] Dominion v. Fox News, No. N21C-03-257 (Del. Super. Ct.) (Hon. Eric M. Davis).
[xi] Abbott v. Perez, 585 U.S. 579, 623 (Sotomayor, J. dissenting).
[xii] Texas Association of Business v. City of Austin, 565 S.W.3d 425 (Tex. App. – Austin, 2018).
[xiii] “Mercedes to Pay $150 Million Over Claims It Cheated on Emissions Tests,” The New York Times, Dec. 22, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/climate/mercedes-defeat-devices-dieselgate-emissions-settlement.html.
[xiv] Amicus brief of Center for Constitutional Responsibility in Support of Petitioner, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, Docket No. 22-429, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-429/249489/20221208141735528_No.%2022-429_Brief%20of%20Amicus%20Curiae.pdf.