The Senate hit a major judicial milestone for President Joe Biden's administration by confirming his hundredth federal court nominee. The chamber voted 54-45 to confirm Gina Méndez-Miró to be U.S. district court judge for Puerto Rico.
The breakdown: The roster of confirmed nominees includes 69 district court judges, 30 circuit court judges and, of course, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
How does this compare to his predecessors? Biden's 100 confirmed picks outpaces the 85 notched by former President Donald Trump and the 67 from former President Barack Obama at this point of their tenures.
It's worth mentioning that figures about judicial appointments can be misleading. Presidents usually have an easier time replacing judges of their own party, so most of their appointments don't change the political balance of the courts much. I don't know how that works out for Biden's nominees, but I wouldn't be surprised if only a third of them represent a liberal taking over a conservative seat.
FWIW, there aren't that many federal vacancies left, so it seems very likely that Biden has shifted the lower courts somewhat.
Ref: https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies
I read elsewhere that Schumer is still respecting "blue slips" which give the home state senators vetoes over district court appointments. If that's correct, Biden isn't tilting the judicial balance in red state districts at all.
Didn't you hear, Kevin? It doesn't matter how many justices Biden appoints, all important cases will be heard by one lone judge in Amarillo, Texas, whose every decision will be quietly not-stamped by the SCOTUS shadow docket.
Over time, Obama's first two years' performance is looking less and less impressive. Slow on judges. Gave Chuck Grassley et al opportunities to delay and stop passage of ACA. Where longevity is the most important factor for SCOTUS*, he nominates 55 year old type-1 diabetic (Life expectancy: ~10 years less). Did nothing to mitigate the growing fury that led to the 2010 mid-terms blowout.
* Selfish Saint Ruth Bader Ginsberg didn't help by stepping down while Dems had 60 Senate seats, allowing a younger strongly liberal replacement.
Yeah, it's sad to think about, but one of the most consequential decisions RBG made on the bench (if not THE most consequential) was to decline to retire in 2010.
From what I read Obama hated the kind of political work needed to be a good senator but those are the political skills are important for a president to get things done. Luckily Obama had Biden to finally get the ACA passed. The media swoons over youth and great speeches but has little respect for the value of experience because they find that boring. If only Obama had had respect for political skills and the patience to develop his I believe he would have had even more significant accomplishments as president. Keeping the economy from falling off a cliff and getting the ACA passed (flaws and all) are major achievements. In contrast to the US under Obama, European countries decided to go all in for austerity after the. Obama pushed a lot of government money into the US economy and ignored our tax cutting Republicans screaming about debt. As a result of deficit spending US economy rebounded quicker and more strongly than did the European economies. By the end of Obama’s term economic growth had lead to increased tax revenues resulting in a sharp drop in the deficit.
That’s on RGB. Very harsh analysis of OB. Only mistake was size of stimulus, lesson learned by Joe, then Joe over did it. Result for OB extended recession, result for Joe, contributing factor to inflation.
I have a problem with the fact that Obama “ended” Bush’s policy of extraordinary rendition by outsourcing it to other countries. Instead of having CIA personnel capture someone thought to be a terrorist we got the Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans, etc. to capture them and send them to other countries to be interrogated. Because those arrests were classified we have no way of knowing how those detainees were treated.