President Donald Trump has nominated longtime southeastern Kentucky circuit judge Daniel Ballou to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, a move announced Tuesday that drew immediate praise from Senator Rand Paul. Ballou, who lives in Williamsburg and currently serves as chief circuit court judge in Kentucky's 34th Judicial Circuit covering McCreary and Whitley counties, would fill the vacancy left after Gregory Van Tatenhove stepped down from the federal bench earlier this year.
Trump said Ballou will be a powerful defender of the rule of law on the federal bench in Kentucky, according to The Courier-Journal. Ballou, born in 1965, graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1995 and received his law degree from the University of Mississippi in 1998. He has served as a judge since 2003 and previously worked as a law clerk for Sixth Circuit Judge Eugene E. Siler Jr., who was appointed to that appellate court by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, according to Ballotpedia.
Rand Paul and Attorney General Weigh In
Paul endorsed Ballou as a judge guided by the founding documents and congratulated him on social media, the same report from the Courier-Journal notes. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman also congratulated Ballou online, saying the judge's judicial and military service prepared him to uphold the rule of law. Ballou did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from the outlet.
Ballou describes himself as believing in applying the law fairly, evenly, and without prejudice, per the paper's reporting. His résumé includes six separate deployments during his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, and he is described as a longtime circuit court judge from southeastern Kentucky. Federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a process Ballou would need to clear before taking the bench.
A 2011 Ethics Rebuke Resurfaces
Ballou's nomination comes with a documented ethics history that predates his current post. In 2011, Ballou received a reprimand involving campaign emails, according to Ballotpedia's account of the case. Ballou defended himself at the time and argued the email was protected speech.
He agreed to the commission's order later in 2011, and the emailed campaign materials about Rand Paul's first U.S. Senate campaign were found to have violated Kentucky's judicial conduct code. Ballou said the email was not intended as an endorsement. Public documents show no indication he was publicly reprimanded again in the years since, according to the Courier-Journal's reporting.
According to the Kentucky Court of Justice's Code of Judicial Conduct, restrictions on political and campaign activities by judges and judicial candidates lose efficacy if their proxies engage in prohibited conduct.
A Prior Run for the State's Highest Court
This is not Ballou's first bid for higher judicial office. He ran unsuccessfully for the Kentucky Supreme Court in 2018, losing the general election for the court's 3rd Supreme Court District to Debra Hembree Lambert, according to Ballotpedia's election records. Ballou ran in that general election.
The Vacancy He Would Fill
The seat opened after Van Tatenhove, a George W. Bush appointee, accepted an offer to become dean of the University of Kentucky's law school, a hiring the university finalized this year. That transition set off significant turmoil in Frankfort. Suspended UK law professor Ramsi Woodcock filed a federal lawsuit in July seeking to block the appointment, arguing it violated American Bar Association accreditation rules and lacked faculty support because Van Tatenhove was installed as dean without academic tenure, as reported by WEKU.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin Beaton of the Western District of Kentucky denied a temporary restraining order in the case on Friday, July 17, clearing the way for Van Tatenhove to take the deanship, according to the ABA Journal. The lawsuit had landed in the Western District because Van Tatenhove's Eastern District colleagues recused themselves to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear publicly criticized the University of Kentucky over the selection, questioning why administrators bypassed standard procedures requiring a law dean to hold academic tenure. Proposed changes to the university's bylaws had not yet received official authority and were requested for a future reading.
What Confirmation Would Mean for the Bench
If confirmed, Ballou would take the vacant seat on the Eastern District of Kentucky bench. The Eastern District covers 67 counties across eastern Kentucky, with courthouses in Lexington, Ashland, Covington, Frankfort, London, and Pikeville.
The confirmation process may offer a preview of what Ballou may face in the Senate. Whether Ballou's 2011 ethics history draws scrutiny during his own confirmation process remains to be seen.
The confirmation process also involves tracking judicial vacancies and pending nominees.
