By Nate Raymond (Ns 🙂
(Reuters) – US Democratic President Joe Biden received his 235th appointment to the federal judiciary on Friday, narrowly surpassing President-elect Donald Trump's first-term tally by one with a record number of women and people of color appointed to the judiciary.
The Democratic-led US Senate has voted to confirm two of Biden's nominees to serve as federal court judges for life in California, the culmination of a four-year White House effort to reshape a federal judiciary that has shifted ideologically to the right during California's tenure. Republican Trump's first presidential term.
Biden now ranks second in history for the number of judicial appointments in a single four-year term, beating Trump's 234 appointments. Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter holds the single-term record with 262 justices appointed.
“It's historic,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “He's setting a record.”
Biden surpassed Trump's first term record even though he inherited less than half the number of vacancies that had to be filled when he took office like Trump. But Biden appointed fewer appeals court judges than Trump and only one U.S. Supreme Court justice compared to Trump's three.
Trump is expected to have the opportunity to appoint more than 100 judges over four years when his second term begins on January 20.
About two-thirds of Biden's appointees are women, and about the same percentage are Black, Hispanic or other racial minorities, in keeping with his campaign pledge to diversify a bench that has long been largely white and male.
“When I ran for president, I promised to build a seat that looks like America and reflects the promise of our nation,” Biden said in a statement. “I am proud to have maintained my commitment to strengthening confidence in judicial decision-making and its outcomes.”
He also pushed to diversify the professional backgrounds of a judiciary long dominated by former prosecutors and former law partners. The White House said Biden appointed more than 45 solicitors general to the bench and more than 25 civil rights lawyers to serve as judges.
Among the latest confirmed nominees is Serena Murillo, a state court judge in Los Angeles who became the 150th woman to be appointed to a judgeship under Biden, with the Senate voting 49-47 to favor her service in the Central District of California.
That's a record for female judges appointed by a single president, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an advocacy group that has backed several of Biden's nominees. The previous record holder was former Democratic President Barack Obama, with 138 confirmations during his eight years in office.
The Senate also voted 49-47 to promote San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Benjamin Cheek to the lifetime position of U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of California.
With Cheeks' confirmation, 63 Black federal judges have been appointed under Biden, a record for a president that includes the nation's first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She is now part of the three-member liberal minority on the Supreme Court, which shifted to a 6-3 conservative majority after Trump's appointment of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Biden also appointed fewer judges to the 13 appeals courts that report to the Supreme Court, which has the final say on the bulk of cases. Biden appointed 45 people while Trump appointed 54, 19 of whom filled seats previously held by Democratic-appointed judges.
