In a historic move for the departing White House occupant, the Democratic-led Senate confirmed President Joe Biden‘s nomination as the 235th federal judge, one more than former President Donald Trump had obtained.
With Friday’s most recent confirmation, which may be his final, Biden would leave office with 187 district court judges, 45 appeals court judges, one Supreme Court justice, and two justices on the U.S. Court of International Trade.
As the gavel fell to some cheers in the Senate chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hailed the vote as “historic.”
“Under President Biden, the majority has now confirmed more judges than any other majority in decades. He declared, “This is historic.” “We have confirmed more judges than any administration in this century, more judges than any administration dating back decades, and more judges than under the Trump administration.”
According to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee, “the number is very consequential.” “We feel so much relief.”
The safest aspect of a Biden legacy that Trump will partially dismantle when he returns to the White House and his party takes control of the Senate next month is that all of them will serve lifetime appointments.
According to an information sheet released by the White House, “these men and women have the power to uphold basic rights or to roll them back.” “President Biden is pleased with his appointment history and appreciative of the Senate’s collaboration in achieving this momentous milestone.”
Biden is most proud of the kinds of justices he has selected, not just the quantity. The White House emphasized the “professional diversity” of his selections, including judges with experience in “immigration law, municipal law, and plaintiffs’ side work,” as well as “more than 45 public defenders, more than 25 civil rights lawyers, and at least 10 who have represented workers.”
As an early objective for Biden’s White House when choosing nominees, presidents of both parties have historically tended to recruit prosecutors and corporate lawyers to serve as judges. Biden’s choices deviate from this trend.
The White House also emphasized “demographic diversity,” citing a “record number of women, Black, Latino, AANHPI, Native American, Muslim-American, and LGBTQ judges” as well as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and a former public defender.
Although Biden has more justices than Trump, he lags behind his predecessor in one crucial area: Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, including two who shifted the court to the right, resulting in a 6-3 majority that is regarded as the most conservative in almost a century.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz criticized Biden’s judicial selections.
“The willingness of Senate Democrats to ratify fervent zealots to serve as judges astounded me,” he remarked.
The incoming chair of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, stated that Republicans will make sure Trump concludes his second term with more judges overall than Biden had.
Grassley told NBC News, “They’re going to boast about having 235 instead of Trump’s 234.” “Trump is going to boast about having 240 on January 20, 2029.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Republicans are unlikely to duplicate that number in the next four years, given the smaller number of seats Trump and the next GOP-controlled Senate will inherit.
“Beating that would be pretty impressive,” Cornyn remarked.
“Be diligent about filling those because those are obviously lifetime appointments,” he said, adding that Republicans do not need to be “in any numerical competition” with Biden’s tenure.
Biden and Democrats don’t really care about the moment, according to Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.
He stated in an interview that it indicates they have received one more than 234 but one less than 236.
After he mostly deferred to others on district court and appeals court judicial nominations during his first term, Kennedy stated that he thinks Trump may “do things differently” and “become more involved” with lower court nominees during his second term.
He remembered that not all of Trump’s first-term choices pleased him.
“In general, I think his first term’s candidates were good. I helped kill four or five of them,” Kennedy remarked. Every time I did it, I discussed it with him. He constantly instructed me to move my nominee to a different zip code if I had nominated someone who wasn’t qualified. And I did, as well as a few of my coworkers.
Blumenthal said Democrats’ philosophy was that “every vacancy left open is the potential for an unqualified ideologue” picked by Trump and Republicans next year, who he said “will be there for decades.”
“I’m not ready to uncork the champagne, just because we’ve done some really good work over the last four years. We need to meet be prepared for the worst, hope for the best, and try to defeat nominees who are truly unqualified. We have our work cut out. So the prospects ahead are pretty sobering.”