Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Unlock the free White House Watch newsletter
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Joe Biden stamped his legacy on the federal bench after Senate Democrats raced to confirm more than 200 nominees for lifetime appointments to US courts, surpassing Donald Trump’s tally during his first presidency.
Biden’s tally of judicial nominees reached 235 as Congress wrapped up its latest session last week, topping Trump’s 234 federal judges in his first term. Biden is the longest judge appointed by a president to a single four-year term since the 1980s, Biden said in a statement.
With Biden’s presidency winding down, Senate Democrats — who are tasked with confirming federal judges — have pushed for as many confirmations as possible before handing control of Congress and control of the White House to Republicans next month.
They hope this final dash will counter the wave of judicial confirmations in Trump’s first term that have fundamentally reshaped the US judiciary, swinging the courts to the right at all levels.
Trump’s appointment of three Supreme Court justices also tilted the ideological scale on the nation’s most powerful bench, splitting it 6-3 between conservative and liberal justices.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has handed down rulings that have reverberated across American society, including rejecting a decision that preserved the constitutional right to an abortion — thereby encouraging right-leaning judges on lower courts, many appointed by Trump, to rule. For the conservative cause.
The growing brazenness of the American judiciary and the increasingly polarized political landscape have made judicial appointments an important frontier of presidential power. Judges at all levels have the opportunity to consider challenges to administration rules and statutes, providing a strong check on controversial policies.
A last-minute push by Democrats that began in the wake of Biden’s election loss in November angered Trump. he call Senate to block Biden’s judicial nominations: “Democrats are trying to stack the courts with radical left judges on their way out the door.”
“Polarization around the appointment of federal judges has grown,” said Georgetown law professor Paul Butler. The Republican Party has historically prioritized judicial nominations — and Biden has taken a leaf out of that playbook, Butler added.
Biden’s appointments are also notable for their diversity, including what he described as “a record number of judges with backgrounds and experiences that have long been overlooked.”
About two-thirds of confirmed judges are women and people of color. Biden has appointed more black women to the US Circuit Court than any previous president, and his only Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was the first black woman on the top court.
“Biden’s focus was on remedying all the decades where people other than straight white men weren’t considered for the bench,” Butler said.
Biden has picked a record number of public defenders, more than 45, as well as labor and civil rights lawyers — more than 10 and 25, respectively — for the federal bench.
“It’s absolutely critical to a thriving, multiracial democracy that we have judges who are not just like all of us, but who have studied and spent their careers understanding how the law affects people’s lives,” said Lena Zwarenstein, senior director of Fair Court, a citizen. – Rights groups, civil and human rights leadership conference programs.
The pendulum is about to swing again. A new wave of conservative judicial appointments is expected after Trump returns to the White House next month and Republicans take control of the Senate.
“I’m incredibly proud of how the Senate Republican Conference worked as a team with former President Trump to build the federal judiciary,” John Thune, the newly elected Republican Senate leader, said earlier this year. “I look forward to working with him to redouble our efforts during his next term in office.”
