Washington, D.C. — The Senate chamber fell silent just before noon as the clerk called the final votes. When the tally flashed across the screen — 52 to 46 — Republican lawmakers broke into muted applause. The confirmation of Joshua Dunlap, a conservative attorney from Maine, marked a symbolic victory for President Donald Trump’s second-term judicial agenda and a rare breach into a bastion long dominated by liberal jurists.
For decades, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, has been one of the most progressive appellate courts in the nation — a forum where Democratic state attorneys general, advocacy groups, and civil rights organizations routinely challenged Republican administrations. That changed Thursday, when the Senate confirmed Dunlap to a lifetime seat, giving Trump his first appointee to the 1st Circuit and completing a quiet but steady campaign to leave no appellate bench untouched.
A Historic Gap Closes
Until this week, the 1st Circuit — which covers Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico — was the only one of the nation’s 13 appellate circuits without an active judge appointed by a Republican president.
That absence had made New England’s federal courts an attractive staging ground for legal challenges against Trump’s policies throughout his first administration. Cases over immigration orders, climate regulations, and transgender military bans often began in district courts within the circuit’s jurisdiction, where liberal-leaning panels frequently ruled against his government.
Now, Trump has a foothold in one of the few judicial arenas that had remained entirely blue.
“This confirmation changes the character of the First Circuit,” said John Malcolm, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation. “It’s still dominated by Democratic appointees, but the symbolism is powerful. For conservatives, it represents the completion of a map — every circuit now includes a Trump-era voice.”
Who Is Joshua Dunlap?
Joshua Dunlap, 41, is not a household name. Yet in conservative legal circles, he’s regarded as a rising star — disciplined, soft-spoken, and methodically committed to what he calls “constitutional originalism.”
A partner at Pierce Atwood LLP in Portland, Maine, Dunlap built his career litigating constitutional and administrative law cases for business and policy organizations skeptical of government expansion. His clients have challenged Maine’s paid family leave law, fought state campaign-finance restrictions, and opposed the adoption of ranked-choice voting, arguing it undermines the clarity of democratic outcomes.
In his confirmation hearings, Dunlap projected calm confidence. “I believe in the separation of powers,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Courts interpret the law. They do not write it. They do not fix policy errors. That is for the people, through their representatives.”
He graduated from Pensacola Christian College — a small private institution in Florida known for its strict biblical curriculum — before earning his law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2008. While in law school, he interned with what is now called the Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative legal nonprofit focused on religious liberty and First Amendment cases.
Those connections, once peripheral, became central to his identity during the confirmation process. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee pressed him on his previous work and affiliations. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned whether Dunlap’s faith-based background might bias his interpretation of equal protection law. Dunlap’s response was succinct: “My faith informs my conscience, but my oath is to the Constitution.”
A Seat Nearly Lost
The opening Dunlap filled was itself a story of political timing.
The vacancy originated with Judge William Kayatta, an Obama appointee who announced he would assume senior status in October 2024, mere days before the election that returned Trump to the White House for a second term.
President Joe Biden had nominated Julia Lipez, a federal prosecutor with deep New England roots and the daughter of retired 1st Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez, to replace Kayatta. But her nomination stalled in the Senate amid a partisan deadlock during the final months of Biden’s presidency.
When Trump was sworn in again, the nomination was withdrawn. By summer, he had named Dunlap as his replacement.
“President Trump seized a moment that almost slipped away,” noted political historian Allan Lichtman. “If Biden had secured one more vote in the Senate last year, that seat would have been filled by a progressive judge. Instead, Trump has turned the court’s composition into a symbolic triumph.”
The Vote: Party Lines Hold
Thursday’s vote followed a familiar pattern. All Republican senators voted in favor, while Democrats opposed — a reflection of how judicial confirmations have become a near-total test of party unity.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced Dunlap’s appointment as part of what he called “the right-wing capture of our courts.” He warned that the addition of ideologues “threatens to turn the First Circuit into a laboratory for corporate interests.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who shepherded hundreds of Trump’s judicial confirmations in his first term, dismissed the criticism. “Joshua Dunlap represents the very best of the American legal tradition,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “He will interpret the Constitution as written — not as imagined.”
The Senate’s 52–46 tally underscored how few moderates remain willing to cross the aisle on judicial matters. Not since the early 2000s have appellate confirmations drawn bipartisan margins larger than a handful of votes.
A Broader Pattern: The Conservative Counteroffensive
Dunlap’s confirmation wasn’t an isolated event. It capped a week of judicial maneuvering that saw the Senate approve Eric Tung, another Trump nominee, for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco — historically considered the most liberal appellate court in the country.
The Senate confirmed Tung, 52–45, making him the first judge Trump has appointed to the 9th Circuit during his second administration. A former clerk to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Antonin Scalia, Tung is a partner at Jones Day in Los Angeles and previously served as a federal prosecutor and attorney at the Department of Justice.
During his nomination announcement, Trump lauded Tung on social media as a “Tough Patriot” who would preserve the rule of law in “the most radical, leftist states — California, Oregon, and Washington.”
The appointment strengthens the conservative bloc on the 9th Circuit, which now includes 13 Republican appointees and 16 Democratic appointees, narrowing what was once an overwhelming liberal majority.
With Dunlap’s confirmation in Boston and Tung’s in San Francisco, Trump effectively placed markers at opposite ends of the American judicial map — both in circuits long viewed as strongholds of progressive jurisprudence.
Trump’s Second-Term Judicial Vision
Unlike his first term, when the Trump administration focused heavily on reshaping the Supreme Court and the lower federal judiciary through sheer volume of appointments, the second-term strategy has been more selective — strategic placement over quantity.
“In his first four years, the goal was speed,” said Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, in a recent interview. “This time, it’s precision. Every nomination has been chosen for symbolic and ideological weight.”
Dunlap and Tung exemplify that approach: deeply conservative, impeccably credentialed, and likely to influence the ideological tenor of their circuits for decades.
Legal analysts say Trump’s team is also mindful of optics. With Democrats still controlling several state legislatures and major cities, the administration has sought to project that even the most liberal jurisdictions — Boston, San Francisco, Seattle — will now face judicial counterbalance.
“By placing conservatives on courts historically hostile to his policies, Trump is not only changing outcomes — he’s challenging the mythology of blue-state immunity,” said legal commentator Lisa Rubin.
The First Circuit’s Future
For now, the 1st Circuit’s balance of power remains firmly in Democratic hands. Of the court’s six active judges, five were appointed by Democratic presidents, including three by Barack Obama and two by Joe Biden.
Yet even a single new conservative jurist can alter the dynamics of appellate panels, which are typically composed of three judges chosen at random.
“It doesn’t take a majority to make an impact,” explained appellate attorney Neal Katyal, who argued several cases before the 1st Circuit. “A single dissenting opinion can influence how future litigants frame their arguments. It can also set up cases for Supreme Court review.”
Indeed, conservative advocacy groups have already indicated that Dunlap’s presence may encourage new legal challenges on issues such as gun rights, school choice, and religious freedom.
One such organization, the New England Center for Liberty, announced plans to file a case challenging Maine’s restrictions on charter school funding within days of the confirmation. “We finally have a court that might listen,” said its director.
A Polarized Judiciary, a Polarized Nation
The celebration of Dunlap’s confirmation on conservative media platforms contrasted sharply with liberal alarm.
On Fox News, commentators hailed Trump’s “unbroken streak of judicial wins,” calling it proof that the president was keeping his promise to defend the Constitution.
On MSNBC, analysts framed the same development as a warning of creeping judicial partisanship. “When courts are viewed as political spoils,” said constitutional law professor Melissa Murray, “public faith in impartial justice erodes.”
This divide mirrors a broader American reality: judges have become ideological avatars, their robes symbols not only of law but of political identity.
In 1985, more than half of appellate confirmations were approved by unanimous or near-unanimous votes. By 2025, virtually none are.
“Both sides now see the judiciary as the final battlefield,” said historian Julian Zelizer. “In a gridlocked Congress, courts are the only institutions that still move policy. That’s why every seat, no matter how obscure, becomes a war.”
Dunlap’s Own Words
In remarks following his confirmation, Dunlap avoided triumphalism. “I am grateful for the confidence the Senate has placed in me,” he said in a written statement. “The First Circuit is a court of deep intellectual rigor and long tradition. I will strive every day to honor that legacy.”
He added that he viewed his role “not as a partisan actor but as a guardian of the rule of law.”
Yet few observers expect the politics to fade. Every opinion he writes — especially those touching on abortion, environmental regulation, or labor rights — will likely be scrutinized for ideological subtext.
“Joshua Dunlap may wish to stay above politics,” said legal journalist Dahlia Lithwick. “But in today’s climate, no judge confirmed under Trump can avoid it. Their very existence is political.”
Looking West: The 9th Circuit Tightens
Eric Tung’s confirmation on the opposite coast carried equal symbolic weight. For years, conservatives derided the 9th Circuit as the “nuttiest circuit in the nation” — a court whose liberal rulings on immigration, environmental protection, and civil rights frequently clashed with Republican administrations.
During Trump’s first term, he succeeded in appointing 10 judges to that court, slowly chipping away at its ideological imbalance. Tung’s addition brings the conservative bloc to its strongest position in decades.
Tung, 43, is the son of Taiwanese immigrants and a product of Harvard Law School. His résumé reads like a conservative’s ideal pedigree: clerkships with Scalia and Gorsuch, service as a federal prosecutor, and a decade at Jones Day — the powerhouse law firm that represented Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
In remarks at his swearing-in ceremony, Tung said he viewed the judiciary as “a shield against both tyranny and mob rule.”
Critics worry that phrase encapsulates a worldview more sympathetic to executive power than individual rights. “We’ve seen how the phrase ‘rule of law’ is being reinterpreted,” said Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. “It’s no longer about fairness — it’s about control.”
The Trump Legacy — Reinforced
As the political class digested both confirmations, analysts returned to a familiar theme: Trump’s enduring judicial legacy.
During his first administration, he appointed more than 230 federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices, reshaping the judiciary for a generation. His second term appears determined to consolidate that influence, not through volume but through strategic placement and ideological depth.
“Dunlap and Tung represent bookends of the same strategy,” said historian Douglas Brinkley. “Trump is filling courts in places where Democrats once assumed they were safe. It’s not just about law — it’s about geography, symbolism, and reclaiming the cultural narrative.”
For Democrats, the task of recalibrating that balance has grown exponentially harder. Even if future presidents appoint progressive judges, the lifetime tenure of Trump’s picks ensures their influence will stretch well into the 2050s.
Conclusion: The Court, the Country, and the Consequences
In the ornate halls of the 1st Circuit’s courthouse on Boston’s historic Beacon Hill, portraits of jurists dating back two centuries line the walls. Their expressions are solemn, their robes unchanging, their gaze steady. For generations, the institution has prided itself on being a temple of moderation and intellect.
With Joshua Dunlap’s arrival, that temple has a new inhabitant — one shaped by a distinctly modern battle over law, politics, and identity.
Across the continent, Eric Tung will soon don his robe in the marble corridors of the 9th Circuit’s San Francisco headquarters, bringing the same ideological current to another storied court.
Together, they mark the continuation of a project that began years ago: Donald Trump’s reshaping of the American judiciary, one lifetime appointment at a time.
Whether history remembers it as restoration or radicalization will depend on what these judges choose to write — and what America chooses to believe.
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.