Aug 13 (Reuters) - A new judicial nomination by U.S.

President Donald Trump is poised to give judges he selected a

majority on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, making it the

first of the country's federal appeals courts to be dominated by

the Republican leader's appointees.

Trump late on Wednesday announced in a social media post that he

is nominating Arkansas-based U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky,

whom he appointed to the bench in his first term, to serve on

the 8th Circuit in St. Louis.

The appeals court hears cases from federal courts in ​Arkansas,

Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South

Dakota. It is already considered one of the ​most conservative

of the 12 regional appeals courts that sit below the U.S.

Supreme Court.

Ten of the court's 11 active judges were appointed by

​Republican presidents, including five by Trump.

If confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Rudofsky would

succeed U.S. Circuit Judge Bobby Shepherd, an appointee of

Republican ‌former President George W. Bush, who last month

announced plans to retire from active service.

"Lee will be a rock solid defender of the Constitution on

the Eighth Circuit," Trump wrote in a post on his social media

platform Truth Social.

Rudofsky did not immediately respond to a request for

comment.

The Little Rock-based judge was appointed by Trump to the U.S.

District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in 2019. At

the time, he worked for Walmart ( WMT ) as senior director of its global

anti-corruption compliance team.

He had returned to Walmart ( WMT ) a year earlier after working since

2015 as Arkansas' solicitor general under Republican Attorney

General Leslie Rutledge. In that position, he defended in court

the state's decision to end Medicaid funding for Planned

Parenthood.

Earlier in his career, Rudofsky worked at law firm Kirkland &

Ellis and served on several Republican campaigns, including as

deputy general counsel and director of legal election day

operations for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. He has

also been a member of the conservative Federalist Society.

As a judge, Rudofsky in 2022 issued a ruling that sharply

curtailed the ability of private plaintiffs to enforce the

protections against racial discrimination in Section 2 of the

Voting Rights Act by holding that only the U.S. attorney general

is empowered to file lawsuits under the landmark voting rights

law.

The 8th Circuit later upheld that decision.

In 2024, following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on

Israel and the war in Gaza that followed, Rudofsky joined a

group of other judges who traveled to Israel to meet with

government officials and soldiers.

As demonstrations concerning the war began to roil campuses

nationally, the judge, who is Jewish, also pressed his future

law clerks to confirm they had not done anything that could be

construed as condoning the October 7 attack or acts of

antisemitism or Islamophobia.

Read more:

Trump gains another appeals court opening with judge's planned

exit

US court will not revisit ruling limiting voting rights lawsuits

Trump-appointed judge presses future clerks on Israel-Hamas war

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston)