US Senate Democrats rush to confirm judges before Trump takes office

WASHINGTON – The US Senate’s Democratic majority began a crusade on Nov 12 to confirm as many new federal judges nominated by President Joe Biden as possible to avoid leaving vacancies that

Republican Donald Trump could fill after taking office on Jan 20.

With Republicans set to take control of the chamber on Jan 3, the Senate on Nov 12 held a confirmation vote on one of Mr Biden’s judicial nominees – former prosecutor April Perry – for the first time since Trump won the Nov 5 presidential election. The Senate voted 51-44 in favour of her becoming a US district court judge in Illinois.

All told, Mr Biden has announced another 30 judicial nominees who are awaiting Senate confirmation votes. Sixteen already have been reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and are awaiting a final confirmation vote by the full Senate. Another 14 nominees are awaiting committee review.

The US Constitution assigns to the Senate the power to confirm a president’s nominees for life-tenured seats on the federal judiciary.

“We are going to get as many done as we can,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Trump made 234 judicial appointments during his first four years in office, the second-most of any president in a single term, and succeeded in moving the judiciary rightward – including building a 6-3 conservative majority on the US Supreme Court with three appointees. 

Mr Biden has appointed a host of liberal judges. Since the beginning of his presidency in 2021, the Senate has confirmed 214 Biden judicial nominees, including liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. About two-thirds were women and the same share were racial minorities.

Senate Democrats are under pressure to swiftly confirm the remaining nominees, along with any new picks Mr Biden may name in the waning weeks of his presidency.

How many nominees Senate Democrats will be able to confirm remains to be seen. Trump, in a social media post on Nov 10, called on the Senate to halt approving Mr Biden’s nominees, saying, “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges.”

Billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk on Nov 12 wrote on social media that “activist” judicial nominees are “bad for the country”. Mr Mike Davis, a Trump ally at the conservative judicial advocacy group Article III Project, in another post urged Senate Republicans to vote down all judicial appointments until January.

“The American people voted for monumental change,” Mr Davis wrote on social media last week. “Grind the Senate to a halt.”

Current Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s office declined comment. He has consistently opposed Mr Biden’s nominees and, as majority leader, was instrumental in getting Trump’s previous nominees confirmed. 

Trump’s judicial appointees have been involved in major decisions welcomed by conservatives, including Supreme Court rulings rolling back abortion rights, widening gun rights, rejecting race-conscious collegiate admissions and limiting the power of federal regulatory agencies.

Judicial nominees require a simple majority for confirmation. Democrats currently hold a slim 51-49 majority, meaning that they can ill afford any defections or absences if Republicans show up in force to oppose Mr Biden’s nominees during the chamber’s post-election “lame duck” session.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has said he would not vote for any nominee who does not garner at least one Republican vote. Must-pass legislation such as a spending Bill to avert a government shutdown may also consume precious time during the session.

‘Every possible nominee’

Mr Biden’s allies have said a concerted push to confirm his remaining nominees would allow him to build on his legacy of helping to diversify a federal bench long dominated by white men.

He is not done nominating judges. On Nov 8, he announced his first post-election nominee, Ms Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who after unsuccessfully running in the 2021 Democratic primary to be Manhattan district attorney, was picked for a job as a federal district judge in New York.

A spokesperson for Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chair of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he “aims to confirm every possible nominee before the end of this Congress”.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates on Nov 11 noted that during Trump’s first term, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed 18 judges before Mr Biden took office after winning the 2020 election. 

Pending nominees include five to the influential federal appeals courts. Republicans said before the election that they had the votes to block two of them: Mr Adeel Mangi, who would become the first Muslim federal appellate judge, and North Carolina Solicitor-General Ryan Park, who unsuccessfully defended the race-conscious admissions policies before the Supreme Court.

There are an additional 26 picked by Mr Biden to serve as trial court judges, including Ms Perry, a former prosecutor now working at Chicago-headquartered GE HealthCare who would join the bench in Illinois. Mr Biden nominated her to a judgeship in April after her prior nomination to become Chicago’s top federal prosecutor was blocked by Republican Senator J.D. Vance.

Mr Vance began placing a hold on Mr Biden’s nominees to the US Justice Department in 2023 after Special Counsel Jack Smith secured the first of two federal indictments against Trump, who subsequently picked the senator as his vice-presidential running mate. REUTERS