By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden secured his 235th appointment to the federal judiciary on Friday, narrowly surpassing President-elect Donald Trump’s first-term tally by one, with a record number of women and people of color in the bank.
The Democratic-led U.S. Senate voted to confirm two of Biden’s nominees to serve as judges for life on the federal court in California, capping a four-year effort by the White House to overhaul a federal judiciary which shifted ideologically to the right during World War II. first presidential term of Trump, a Republican.
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Biden now ranks No. 2 in history for most judicial appointments in a single four-year term, beating Trump’s 234 named. Democratic former President Jimmy Carter holds the single-term record with 262 judges appointed.
“It’s historic,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “It sets a record.”
Biden surpassed Trump’s record in his first term, despite inheriting less than half the number of vacancies when he took office as Trump. But Biden appointed fewer appeals court judges than Trump and only one U.S. Supreme Court justice, compared to Trump’s three.
Trump is expected to have the opportunity to appoint more than 100 judges in four years when his second term begins on January 20.
About two-thirds of Biden’s appointees are women, and about the same percentage are Black, Hispanic or other racial minorities, in keeping with a campaign promise he made to diversify a bench that has long been largely white and male.
“When I ran for president, I pledged to build a bank that looks like America and reflects the promise of our nation,” Biden said in a statement. “And I am proud that I have kept my promise to increase confidence in judicial decision-making and outcomes.”
He also pushed to diversify the professional backgrounds of a judiciary long dominated by former prosecutors and former law firm partners. The White House said Biden has appointed more than 45 public defenders to the court and more than 25 civil rights attorneys to serve as judges.
The latest nominees confirmed included Serena Murillo, a state court judge in Los Angeles who became the 150th woman appointed as a judge under Biden, with the Senate voting 49-47 in favor of her position in the Central District of California .
That’s a record number of female judges appointed by one president, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an advocacy group that backed many of Biden’s nominees. Democratic former President Barack Obama had tied the previous record with 138 during his eight years in office.
The Senate also voted 49-47 to elevate San Diego-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheeks to a lifetime position as a district court judge for the Southern District of California.
Cheeks’ confirmation marks 63 Black federal lawyers confirmed under Biden, a record number for a president, including the nation’s first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She is now part of the three-member liberal minority on the Supreme Court, which shifted to a 6-3 conservative majority after Trump’s appointment of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Biden also appointed fewer judges to the 13 appeals courts that sit below the Supreme Court and have the final say on the majority of cases. Biden named 45, while Trump appointed 54, 19 of whom filled seats once occupied by Democratic-appointed judges.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Richard Chang and Leslie Adler)
