Alcolumbre Weighs Sending Lula’s Supreme Court Pick Back Without a Hearing

BRASILIA — Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP) is weighing an unusual answer if President Lula sends Jorge Messias to the Supreme Court a second time: return the nomination without moving it, according to allies who spoke to Estadão’s political column. In practice, they said, Alcolumbre would “hand it back to Lula” and would not forward Messias’s name to the Senate Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ), where the process begins. Alcolumbre did not comment when Estadão asked.

Messias is Lula’s attorney general, the head of the government’s legal office (AGU). In April, the Senate floor voted him down, which Estadão describes as the first rejection of a Supreme Court nominee in 132 years. The seat opened when Justice Luís Roberto Barroso retired. Alcolumbre’s allies say the mood in the Senate has not changed since April and that it “makes no sense” to open the new term with a political crisis over the same name. If Lula “doubles down,” they say, Alcolumbre would argue that the nomination was already considered and Messias was already rejected. Lula was re-elected in October to a fourth term.

Why it matters

The Supreme Court decides who is silenced, who is jailed and who is eligible to run in Brazil, the second-largest democracy in the Americas, and the Senate is the only body that votes on its justices. It is also the body that would try them in an impeachment, a fight we have followed since Senator Rogério Marinho vowed not to sit on impeachment requests. A Senate that refuses to process the same nominee twice is a Senate that has started to use its power over the court. Think of the Senate Judiciary Committee declining to schedule hearings on a name the chamber already voted down.

The alternative on the table

Alcolumbre, according to the column, wants former senator Rodrigo Pacheco, now a minister at the Federal Audit Court (TCU), named to the seat. Congress views Pacheco favorably and sees him as the Senate’s pick, which could also raise lawmakers’ goodwill toward the Lula regime. Lula has not spoken to Pacheco about the Supreme Court since his re-election, though PT members expect a conversation to smooth things over before a new name goes to the Senate. After the CCJ, the nominee still needs approval on the floor.

The record

Confirmed: Messias’s defeat on the Senate floor in April, the vacancy left by Barroso, and Alcolumbre’s silence when asked. Reported but not confirmed: the plan to return the nomination, which comes from unnamed allies of the Senate president, and Alcolumbre’s preference for Pacheco. Lula has not said he will resend Messias.

The pattern is what makes the episode worth reading. Lula’s two earlier picks were Cristiano Zanin, who had been his personal lawyer, and Flávio Dino, his former justice minister, and his third try was the government’s own chief lawyer. The Senate has now told the regime once that the court is not a place to install the president’s staff, and its leadership is signaling it will say so again. Whether Lula listens will show how much he wants a check on his power, or only a court that does not check it.

The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: Estadão (Coluna do Estadão).

Featured image: Presidência do Senado 2026.08.26 by Senado Federal, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.