Andrew S. Oldham

Andrew Stephen Oldham (born 1978) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed in 2018 by President Donald Trump. Prior to his appointment, Oldham was the general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and an associate at the law firm Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick.

Early life and education Oldham was born in 1978 in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts with highest honors. He then studied at the University of Cambridge on a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, receiving a Master of Philosophy with first-class honours in 2002. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and a semi-finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition. He graduated in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude.

Oldham entered private practice in 2009 at the law firm Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick in Washington, D.C.

Prior to becoming a judge, Oldham served as general counsel to Texas governor Greg Abbott, where he advised Abbott on a range of issues under federal and state law and managed litigation in which the Governor was an interested party.

Abbott appointed Oldham as general counsel to replace Jimmy Blacklock, who left to take a seat on the Supreme Court of Texas. He has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2002. On April 25, 2018, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On May 24, 2018, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–10 vote. On July 17, 2018, the Senate invoked cloture on his nomination by a 50–49 vote. On July 18, 2018, his nomination was confirmed by a 50–49 vote. He received his judicial commission on July 19, 2018.

Notable opinions

Consumers' Research v. FCC (2024) In July 2024, Oldham wrote the majority opinion for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, in Consumers' Research v. FCC, holding that the funding mechanism for the Universal Service Fund violated the nondelegation doctrine because Congress had delegated taxing authority to the Federal Communications Commission, which had in turn sub-delegated it to a private nonprofit administrator. The ruling deepened a circuit split with the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, which had rejected similar challenges. In a March 21, 2025, Washington Post column, George Will praised the opinion and wrote that Oldham "merits promotion to a higher court." On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court reversed 6–3 in FCC v. Consumers' Research, upholding the funding mechanism and rejecting Oldham's nondelegation analysis.

United States v. Sanders (2025) In March 2025, Oldham wrote a concurring opinion in United States v. Sanders, the direct criminal appeal of Thomas Sanders, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old child and sentenced to death on two counts. The panel majority, written by Judge Priscilla Richman and joined by Judge Leslie H. Southwick, vacated one of the two sentences on double jeopardy grounds and otherwise affirmed. President Joe Biden had commuted Sanders' death sentences to life without parole on December 23, 2024, as part of a broader grant of clemency to 37 of the 40 inmates on federal death row.

In his concurrence, Oldham wrote that "questions have arisen about the flurry of last-minute pardons issued by the Biden Administration," noting that "at least one was issued by mistake" and that "some or all were allegedly effectuated via autopen." He cited William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England for the proposition that pardons obtained when a sovereign was "deceived" or "misinformed" were historically void, and surveyed the history of the pardon power dating to Anglo-Saxon practice. Oldham also questioned whether the Federal Death Penalty Act permitted the president to commute a death sentence to life without parole, as opposed to imposing some other authorized sentence on remand.

The concurrence drew attention because it raised the autopen and competency theories then being pressed publicly by President Donald Trump and acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who had sent letters to former Biden aides questioning whether Biden was competent when he issued clemency in his final days in office. A 2005 Office of Legal Counsel opinion under President George W. Bush had concluded that a president's use of an autopen to sign a document does not affect its legal validity. The Fifth Circuit denied panel rehearing on July 29, 2025.