In public remarks on Thursday, President Biden celebrated the confirmation of 235 federal judges over the course of his presidency, the culmination of an intense effort by Democrats in his term’s waning months to match President-elect Donald J. Trump’s total four years ago.
The 235 federal judges confirmed to lifetime positions by the Senate, including one Supreme Court justice, barely surpassed the 234 confirmed under Mr. Trump during his first term.
In reaching that milestone, Mr. Biden said his legacy would be creating a bulwark against threats to democracy and empowering individuals who would respect legal precedent — a subtle nod to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and other major reversals that occurred during his presidency.
“Together, these judges are going to hear cases on issues, ruling on from everything from whether Americans can cast their ballot, I mean literally how they can cast their ballot, when it will be counted,” Mr. Biden said. “Whether workers can unionize — I thought we settled that in 1934 — and make a living wage for their families; whether their children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.”
Flanked by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Mr. Biden joked about the great lengths the three of them had gone through to hold votes on his nominees last year.
But he said the breakneck pace proved his administration’s commitment to elevating women and people of color to the federal judiciary; some two-thirds of his nominees fell into one or both categories.
“When I ran for president, I made a promise that I’d have a bench that looks like America, and taps into the full talents of this nation,” he said. “And I’m proud we’ve kept our commitment,” he continued, citing the “help of these two men, and many others” in “bolstering confidence in judicial decision making and outcomes.”
While the president’s remarks were primarily celebratory and reflective, they nodded to the reality that the federal court system has increasingly been pulled into polarizing policy disputes and that public confidence in judicial independence has suffered.
A range of Mr. Biden’s policy priorities were blocked or struck down in federal court during his term, including several student debt forgiveness programs, plans to expand pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and stricter regulations on air pollution. On Thursday, a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s landmark net neutrality rules, which had ranked among Mr. Biden’s signature tech policies.
Those legal turnabouts, among others, have activists and legal experts worried that the practice of “judge shopping,” or filing lawsuits in districts perceived as more sympathetic to a certain cause, is becoming a more feasible tactic for influencing national policy.
Public faith in the political neutrality of the U.S. court system plummeted this year, according to polls, and courts have also had to contend with an uptick in threats of violence and doxxing directed at federal judges, a topic highlighted by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. last week in a year-end report. Mr. Trump, who has routinely lobbed personal attacks against judges who have ruled against him or the policies he has supported throughout his political career, won November’s presidential election in part by campaigning on criticisms of the American legal system.
Particularly after the election, as Republicans also retook the Senate, Democrats made an urgent effort to fill as many judicial vacancies as possible to avoid leaving open seats when the 119th Congress begins on Friday.
The flurry of confirmations helped Democrats avoid a repeat of 2017, when Mr. Trump started his term with more than 100 vacancies awaiting him after Republicans blocked the Obama administration from filling dozens of positions, including a Supreme Court seat. And they helped correct what Democrats described as a severe imbalance after those positions were filled by Mr. Trump, many of whose nominees were vetted and recommended by conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, based on their commitment to conservative principles.
The 235 judges confirmed under Mr. Biden represent more than a quarter of all the judges on the federal bench, and the number of women and people of color included in the final tally outstripped all of Mr. Biden’s predecessors.
The post Biden Celebrates a Milestone on Judicial Confirmations After a Major Push by Democrats appeared first on New York Times.
