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President Biden today announced the first 11 judicial candidates of his term, a diverse list of names he has crafted as a first step towards neutralizing the impact of his predecessor’s desire to move the bench federal government resolutely to the right.
Biden has already issued a series of executive orders and enacted legislation aimed at rolling back many of President Donald Trump’s conservative policies, but there may be no area where Trump has had a stronger effect than the courts. .
Trump has installed almost as many federal judges in four years as President Barack Obama has in eight years. By the time he stepped down, Trump’s appointees represented nearly three out of 10 federal judges.
Working closely with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, then the Republican Majority Leader, Trump also emphasized appointments to appellate courts, rather than lower-status district courts. He has installed 54 judges in appeals courts in four years, while Obama has served just one more in eight years. Nearly a quarter of those appointed by Trump were appeals court judges, a larger share than any other recent president, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.
Trump’s appointees were predominantly white and male, and they were distinctly young, which was part of his and McConnell’s strategy to leave a lasting mark on the federal justice system. Five out of six judges appointed by Trump were white, a higher rate than any president since George HW Bush. Three out of four were men.
“In terms of racial and ethnic diversity, Trump stood out in that his appointees were predominantly male and white,” said John Gramlich, senior editor at Pew who has conducted research on the impact of appointments. of Trump, in an interview.
On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court if he got the chance. His first round of nominees at the appeal and district levels reflects a similar commitment; none are white men. And the commitment to diversity extends to their professional backgrounds: While Trump’s nominees were primarily prosecutors and corporate law partners, Biden chose a roster of attorneys and judges whose careers include litigation in matters of civil rights, civil service and criminal defense.
Among the most important positions he has held is on the Chicago Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Biden has appointed Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder who previously represented hundreds of needy clients as a federal public defender. If confirmed by the Senate, she would become the sole black jurist in the influential Seventh Circuit tribunal, after Trump missed four opportunities to install a non-white judge on the court.
Biden has also announced that he will seek to elevate Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is currently a district court judge, to the influential U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. She also worked as a public defender, and was a Supreme Court clerk and later a court attorney.
In a statement released this morning, the White House underscored the speed of his appointments, stressing that no administration had nominated so many judicial candidates so early in his first term. “President Biden has made a career-long commitment to a strong federal judiciary, and this is reflected in the historically rapid pace at which he has moved to fill vacant federal judicial positions,” said the Minister of Justice. communicated.
But confirming the nominees won’t necessarily be an easy task, as Democrats only control 50 seats in the Senate. “That’s about the lowest majority for them to get nominations,” Gramlich said. “In two years, if the Republicans took over the Senate, it would become much more difficult for Biden.”
For now, Democrats have a big advantage – thanks to former Senator Harry Reid. As the Democratic majority leader for part of the Obama presidency, Reid rejected the obstruction on judicial appointments (while keeping it for votes on legislation), which allowed the president to have it upheld. more easily its appointments.
When Trump became president, McConnell – who had little appetite for passing major laws, but was heavily focused on the federal judiciary – took full advantage of his former enemy’s maneuver. Now, with Biden and New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer in the cockpit, Democrats aim to reclaim as much ground as possible.
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