Biden and Democrats finalize judicial confirmations, seeking to defeat Trump

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Joe Biden is leaving his legacy on the federal bench as Senate Democrats race to confirm more than 200 nominees to lifetime appointments to courts across the United States, more than Donald Trump nominated during his first presidential term.

When Congress ended its latest session last week, Biden’s judicial nominations reached 235, surpassing the 234 federal judges confirmed by Trump during his first term. Biden said in a statement that this is the most judges appointed by a president during a four-year term since the 1980s.

As Biden’s presidency draws to a close, Senate Democrats charged with confirming federal judge appointments have been scrambling to secure as many confirmations as possible before control of Congress hands the White House to Republicans next month.

They hope this final push can counter a wave of judicial confirmations during Trump’s first term that fundamentally reshaped the U.S. judiciary and tilted courts at every level to the right.

Trump’s appointments to the three Supreme Court justices have also skewed the ideological scale of the country’s most powerful justices, with a 6:3 ratio between conservative and liberal justices.

Since then, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made rulings that have reverberated across American society, including overturning a constitutional right to abortion — a move that in turn has emboldened right-leaning justices in lower courts, many of them led by Trump appointees) to rule in support of conservative causes.

The growing boldness of the U.S. judiciary, combined with an increasingly polarized political landscape, has made judicial appointments a key frontier of presidential power. Judges at all levels have the opportunity to participate in challenges to government rules and laws, providing a powerful check on controversial policies.

Democrats began a last-minute push after Biden’s election defeat in November, angering Trump. He called on the Senate to block Biden’s judicial nominations: “Democrats are trying to pack the courts with radical left judges who will then be kicked out.”

“There’s increasing polarization around federal judge appointments,” said Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor. Republicans have historically prioritized judicial selections, Butler added, and Biden has followed suit.

Biden’s appointments are also notable for their diversity, including what he called “a record number of judges whose backgrounds and experience have long been overlooked.”

About two-thirds of confirmed judges are women and people of color. Biden has appointed more Black women to U.S. circuit courts than all previous presidents combined, and his only Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is the first Black woman to the court.

“Biden’s focus has been on correcting the decades-long problem of people other than white, straight men not being considered for the bench,” Butler said.

Biden has also picked a record number of public defenders (more than 45) and labor and civil rights lawyers (at least 10 and more than 25, respectively) to serve on federal judges.

Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the Fair Court, said: “For a thriving multiracial democracy, it is critical that judges not only be like all of us, but also be successful in their careers. Study and understand how the law affects people’s lives.

The pendulum will swing back again. A new wave of conservative judicial appointments is expected once Trump returns to the White House next month and Republicans take control of the Senate.

“I’m extremely proud of how the Senate Republican Conference worked with former President Trump to shape the federal judiciary,” newly elected Republican Senate Leader John Thune said earlier this year. “I look forward to working with him and doubling down on our efforts during his next term.”