By Seung Min Kim and Colleen Long | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — For the Biden White House, a quartet of four female judges in Colorado sums up their mission when it comes to the federal judiciary.
Charlotte Sweeney is the first openly LGBT woman to serve on federal court west of the Mississippi River and has a background in workers’ rights. Nina Wang, an immigrant from Taiwan, is the first trial judge in the state to be elevated to a federal district post.
Regina Rodríguez, who is Latina and Asian-American, served in a federal prosecutor’s office. Veronica Rossman, who came from the former Soviet Union with her family as a refugee, is the first former federal public defender to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
With these four women, who were confirmed during the first two years of President Joe Biden’s term, there is a wide personal and professional diversity that the White House and Democratic senators have promoted in their effort to transform the judiciary.
“The nominations send a powerful message to the legal community that this type of public service is open to a lot of people that it wasn’t open to before,” Ron Klain, White House chief of staff, told The Associated Press. “What it tells the general public is that if you end up in federal court for whatever reason, you’re much more likely to have a judge who understands where you came from, who you are, and what you’ve been through. .”
Klain said that “having a more diverse federal bank in all respects shows more respect for the American people.”
The White House and Democratic senators are closing out the first two years of Biden’s presidency with more federal judges installed than Biden’s two immediate predecessors. The quick clip reflects a zeal to make up for Donald Trump’s legacy of filling the judiciary with young conservatives who often lacked racial diversity.
So far, 97 lifetime federal judges have been confirmed under Biden, a number that exceeds both Trump (85) and Barack Obama (62) at this point in their presidencies, according to data from the White House and the office of the leader of the majority in the senate, chuck. Schumer. DN.Y. The 97 for the Biden presidency include Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman on that court, as well as 28 circuit court judges and 68 district court judges.
Three out of four judges chosen by Biden and confirmed by the Senate in the last two years were women. About two-thirds were people of color. Biden’s list includes 11 black women on the powerful circuit courts, more than those installed under all previous presidents combined. There were also 11 former public defenders appointed to circuit courts, also more than all of Biden’s predecessors combined.
“This is the story of writing a new chapter for the federal judiciary, with truly extraordinary people representing the broadest kinds of diversity possible,” said Paige Herwig, White House senior counsel.
The White House prioritized judicial nominations early on, and Biden transition officials solicited names of potential Democratic senator picks in late 2020. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, moved quickly nominees through hearings and Schumer reserving floor time for voting.
Special emphasis was placed on nominees for the appellate courts, where the vast majority of federal cases end up, and those who come from states with two Democratic senators, who might find easier consensus in a process where awards are still being made. significant deference to home state officials.
Democrats hope to pick up the pace of confirmations next year, a goal that will be more easily achieved with a 51-49 Senate giving them a slim majority in committees. Over the past two years, votes on some of Biden’s most contested judicial nominees have been deadlocked in committee ballots, requiring more procedural steps that consumed valuable time in the Senate.
Republicans also sped up the pace of confirmation considerably in Trump’s last two years in office, after Republican senators implemented a rule change, now used by Democrats, that significantly shortened the time required to process presidential nominees. district courts.
Schumer said he also hopes to install more judges on appeals courts that swung to the right under Trump, an effort the majority leader described as a rebalancing of those courts.
“Trump filled the bench with far-right ‘MAGA’-type judges who are not only out of step with the American people, but even out of step with the Republican Party,” Schumer said in an interview, using abbreviations for the 2016 Trump campaign. slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Schumer added: “We had a mission, it’s not just a predilection. It was a mission to try to restore that balance.”
Despite their limited power to derail Biden’s judicial elections, many of them have been fiercely fought by some Republicans, arguing that their views were outside the legal mainstream despite Democratic arguments to the contrary. The precarious 50-50 Senate, where Schumer’s plans were often thwarted by infirmity or absence, meant that several Biden candidates languished for months and were never confirmed before the Senate wrapped up its work this year.
Democrats also say certain judicial candidates, particularly women of color, were unfairly targeted by their Republican critics, sparking tense fights in the Judiciary Committee.
“Republicans just had a problem with this. Not all, some do,” Durbin said in an interview. “And when you denounce them… ‘Why is it always women of color who are the objects of your anger?’ and they can’t answer.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a member of the committee, said Biden’s pick was “very, very left, but unapologetic.” He called Durbin’s claims about Republicans “absurd.”
“I think the president committed to his base that he was going to put people who share a very left-wing worldview, who are generally quite critical of, for example, the criminal justice system, thinking that it is systemically racist.” Hawley said.
Despite the strengthened Democratic majority, the White House could face some challenges when it comes to nominating and confirming judges in the next two years.
For example, Biden has barely made a dent in the number of district court judge vacancies in states that have two Republican senators, confirming only one of those people: Stephen Locher, now a judge in the Southern District of Iowa. adhere to a practice that allows home-state senators virtual veto power over district court elections, a process known colloquially as the “blue paper,” and Democrats face further push from advocates to dismiss tradition, arguing that it only allows because of Republican filibuster.
For example, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin earlier this year blocked action on William Pocan, nominated to serve the Eastern District of Wisconsin, after initially recommending him as part of a block of White House nominees. Durbin has said he would reconsider the current practice of “blue slips” if he sees systematic abuse by senators, especially based on a candidate’s race, gender or sexual orientation.
But cases like Pocan’s have been rare, Durbin said, and other influential Republicans are providing a level of deference to the Biden White House when it comes to judges.
“I can’t think of a system where the Republicans have all their judges and the Democrats have none,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who will be the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee next year. “That’s not a viable system.”
One issue Biden has been unwilling to address: the structure of the Supreme Court.
Any push to change the land’s highest court, even in small ways, has found little support in the White House, with Biden aides instead pointing to the president’s push to nominate federal judges as the best and most substantial way to secure a Democratic legacy in the Judiciary.
When Biden took office in 2021, calls for changes to the Supreme Court grew louder, after Trump appointed three new justices who slanted the court’s composition to the right.
In June, the 6-3 conservative majority overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade, removing constitutional protections for abortion that had existed for nearly 50 years. He did this despite the fact that most people in the United States believed that abortion should be legal. In the same term, the judges also weakened gun control and reduced the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to manage climate change.
Polls have shown a drop in the court’s approval and respect for it. A Gallup poll found that Americans had the lowest level of trust in the court in 50 years.
Biden has spoken out on the rulings, arguing that the court is more of an “advocacy group these days.” But he has not accepted calls to expand the court or even subject judges to a code of conduct that binds other federal judges. He has not spoken publicly about a study he commissioned on the future of the Supreme Court that he completed last year and suggested term limits, mandatory retirement and codes of judicial ethics as ways to restore confidence in the institution.
White House officials have also refused to weigh in on possible changes, even as advocates of change believe the momentum will be stronger this term, as voting rights, clean water, immigration and tax forgiveness student loans are presented before the judges.
“I would in no way minimize the progress and importance of what President Biden is doing in the lower courts,” said Chris Kang of Demand Justice, an advocacy group leading the push to expand the court. “But at the same time, we need to look at the core issue, which is the Supreme Court, and what can be done to fix the issues.”
For now, the White House’s focus will remain on the people sitting on the courts.
It’s a particularly significant achievement for Biden, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and for Klain, who was a senior adviser to Biden on that committee and a lawyer who worked on judicial nominations in the Clinton White House.
“With all due respect to my predecessors, I’m sure this is a higher priority for me,” said Klain, who meets weekly with the judicial nominating team. But, referring to Biden, Klain added: “The fact that he makes it a priority, makes it a huge priority for me.”