The Senate on Wednesday confirmed the 200th federal judge of President Joe Biden's tenure, about a month earlier than when Donald Trump hit that mark in his term, though Trump still holds the edge when it comes to the most impactful confirmations — those to the Supreme Court and the country's 13 appellate courts.
The current pace of judicial confirmations for this White House came despite Biden, a Democrat, coming into office in 2021 with far fewer vacancies, particularly in the influential appellate courts, than Trump, a Republican, did in 2017. Of the more than 40 current judicial vacancies nationwide, half are in states with two Republican senators. That matters because for district court judges, home-state senators still can exercise virtual veto power over a White House's nominations due to a long-standing Senate tradition.
“I just cannot rave enough about these judges,” said Jake Faleschini, who leads nominations work at the Alliance for Justice. “It's been nothing short of transformative of the federal judiciary in terms of both excellence, but also demographic and professional diversity.” In the appellate courts, 30 of the 42 circuit judges confirmed during Biden's term are women, according to the White House. Thirteen Black women have been chosen as circuit judges, more than all previous administrations combined.
About a one-quarter of the judges Trump nominated were women and about 1 in 6 were minorities, according to the Pew Research Center.
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