President Joe Biden is on track to appoint more federal judges of color than any president before him as he makes a final push to confirm judicial nominees before his term ends.
The Senate on Monday confirmed Biden’s nominee to judge for the Northern District of Georgia, Tiffany Johnson, making her the 40th black woman appointed to a lifetime federal judgeship — more than any president in one term.
In all, about 60% of Biden’s 233 appointees are people of color, according to figures the White House shared with NBC News. Two other nominees for U.S. district judge, Benjamin Cheeks and Serena Raquel Murillo, await Senate confirmation after the Senate Judiciary Committee nominated them Thursday. If Cheeks is confirmed, Biden will have appointed 63 Black federal judges, the most of any presidential term of any length, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
“Research shows that when you have more judges with different perspectives because they work on different types of issues or come from different communities, it improves the decision-making process and certainly increases the confidence of communities in these institutions. . That’s why it’s really important to ensure that we have fair judges at all levels.”
Barack Obama appointed 26 black women judges for life in his two terms, while Donald Trump appointed two black women judges to the federal bench in his first term.
Jimmy Carter appointed 37 black judges in one term. Both Obama and Bill Clinton each appointed 62 black judges over their two terms. If Cheeks is confirmed, Biden will break their record by a margin, according to the Leadership Conference.
These figures include multinational judges and those appointed to several courts under the same president.
Senate Democrats have vowed to confirm as many Biden nominees as possible before Trump takes office in January and Republicans take control of the Senate. They have endorsed dozens of nominees since Election Day, but the district’s nominees are in limbo amid some opposition from Democrats and GOP senators.
“This Senate will continue to work to confirm more of President Biden’s excellent judicial nominees,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an op-ed in November.
In an interview, Marge Baker, executive vice president of People For the American Way, a national progressive organization focused on countering far-right extremism, said confirmation of the remaining candidates was critical.
White House communications director Ben LaBolt said in an emailed statement that Biden is “proud to strengthen the judiciary by making it more representative of the country as a whole, a legacy that will have an impact for decades to come.”
“Even before taking office, President Biden signaled to the Senate that he wanted to make sure that people who have historically been excluded from our justice system are included,” said Lena Zwarenstein, CEO of the Fair Trials Program and an advisor to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
“As pleased as we are with the quality and quantity of nominees confirmed so far, these circuit court nominees are also really important,” Baker said. The four circuit judges are Adeel Abdullah Mangi of New Jersey, a candidate for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals; Maine Julia M. Lipez, 1st Circuit; Carla M. Campbell of Tennessee, 6th Circuit; and Ryan Young Park in North Carolina, 4th Circuit.
“These courts make decisions that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people,” Baker added. “They decide questions about voting rights, consumer rights, workers’ rights, antitrust laws, climate change, abortion. There are just a number of issues that these appellate courts are often the final decision-makers.”
During his long tenure, Biden has made it his goal to reshape the predominantly white and male federal judiciary by appointing judges from diverse professional and demographic backgrounds. He accomplished this by confirming a record number of former public defenders, civil rights defenders, or attorneys representing workers. More than half of his appointees have been women, and his appointments include several LGBTQ judges and several judges from racial and ethnic minority groups, the White House said.
Biden made history by appointing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman to the US Supreme Court. His dozens of appointments lead to various “firsts”.
“Biden has been a leader in appointing black judges,” said Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Research. “The great thing about this is that these appointments will have long-term effects, at least in terms of representation. This shows the public that the inclusion of black judges should be natural, regular.”
Now, experts say these appointments could affect judicial decisions in Trump’s second term.
Elliot Mintzberg, a Supreme Court expert and adviser to People for the American Way, said the justices appointed by Biden “have had a tremendous impact on improving justice for Americans across the country.”
Zwarenstein called it a “huge and often under-discussed part” of Biden’s legacy.
“He really took it to the next level in terms of administrations doing that.”
