There is now one less federal judge vacancy in Alaska after the U.S. Senate voted 58 to 39 to confirm Aaron Peterson as the state’s newest federal judge. Peterson is currently the state’s natural resources attorney.
Peterson said in a legal notice issued soon after the vote that he would be leaving the Alaska Department of Law right away. There are three federal judges in Alaska, but since Joshua Kindred resigned in July 2024 amid a misconduct scandal, there has been only one sitting judge.
Peterson, a registered Republican, will take over for Judge Tim Burgess, who retired on the last day of 2021. That open seat was one of the oldest in the whole U.S. federal court system, as reported by Alaska Beacon.
Alaska’s federal court has had to rely on judges from other states and semi-retired judges who are on senior status because it only has one full-time judge.
There was a lot of bipartisan support for Peterson’s confirmation, with six Democrats voting for it along with most of the Senate’s Republicans. All 39 “no” votes came from Democrats, and three senators did not vote.
Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and the highest-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from the opposing party, voted “yes.”
Peterson said last year that he wouldn’t say whether President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election or whether the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was legal because he might have to rule on the matter as a judge.
Carl Tobias, the Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond School of Law, has been closely monitoring Peterson’s confirmation process.
“It wasn’t a party line vote. And so I think that means that some of the Democrats are signaling that if a person looks like he’s going to be competent, as I think Peterson will be, then they’re going to move forward and vote for that person,” he said.
Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan organized a committee that examined Peterson’s judicial application and forwarded it to President Donald Trump for official nomination.
The committee bypassed the usual procedure, which relies on advice from the Alaska Bar Association.
“I’m confident that he will be a great federal judge for our state,” he said in a prepared written statement.
According to the information Peterson submitted to the U.S. Senate’s judiciary committee, he was born in Anchorage in 1981 and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2003 before attending the University of Alaska Anchorage, graduating in 2007. He attended Gonzaga University School of Law and graduated in 2010. He was admitted to the Alaska bar that year.
He returned to Alaska after graduation, serving first as a clerk to Judge Michael Spaan of the Anchorage Superior Court, then as a prosecutor with the Municipality of Anchorage.
Peterson worked in the Anchorage District Attorney’s office starting in 2012, including on violent felonies, such as murder and sexual assault. He moved to the Department of Law’s office of special prosecutions in 2015 before beginning work with the Department of Law’s natural resources section in 2019.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski didn’t participate in Peterson’s application process but offered her support after Trump nominated Peterson and voted for his confirmation on Wednesday.
“I look forward to Mr. Peterson hitting the ground running to help an overworked court, while working to address and reform the culture of abuse and low morale that has permeated the District Court in recent years,” Murkowski said in a prepared written statement. “Mr. Peterson is a born-and-raised Alaskan with a strong record of legal practice in our state, including in natural resources and criminal and civil law, and his leadership will be invaluable to Alaska. We now turn our focus to filling the remaining vacancy as soon as possible.”
