WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Joshua Kolar, a federal magistrate and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, to a spot on the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Kolar was confirmed on a 66-25 vote for the Indiana seat on the court. All the no votes came from Republicans.
With Kolar’s confirmation, the 7th Circuit now has four judges nominated by President Joe Biden. Biden picked Kolar in July.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted at Kolar’s September confirmation hearing that his nomination had the backing of both of Indiana’s Republican senators, Todd Young and Mike Braun.
Kolar’s confirmation represents a bipartisan move — the committee does not advance a nominee without the approval of the home state senators who send in a “blue slip” to show they have no objections.
Young said at the September hearing, “I’m proud of Indiana’s string of judicial appointments that have been confirmed by bipartisan majorities.”
Kolar has served as a magistrate judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana since 2019.
His Navy service stretches to 2009; Kolar was on active duty in Afghanistan from 2014 to 2015.
Before becoming a magistrate, Kolar was an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Indiana from 2007 to 2018.
He was in private practice at Mayer Brown L.L.P. from 2006 to 2007 and 2003 to 2005.
Kolar received undergraduate and law degrees from Northwestern University.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who studies federal judicial selections, said, “Kolar won a strong 66-25 confirmation vote, because he was a well-qualified, mainstream nominee” with experience as a federal prosecutor, magistrate and military officer and with the “powerful support of Indiana Senators Young and Braun.”
The court hears cases from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
