WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led Senate has confirmed the 235th federal judge nominated by President Joe Biden, marking a milestone for the outgoing occupant of the White House by giving him one more than former President Donald Trump secured.
The latest confirmation Friday could be Biden’s last, meaning he will leave office having secured one Supreme Court justice, 45 appeals court judges, 187 district judges and two U.S. Court of International Trade judges .
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the vote “historic” as the gavel fell to some applause in the Senate chamber.
“The majority has now confirmed more justices under President Biden than any majority has confirmed in decades. This is historic,” he said. “We have appointed more judges than under the Trump administration, more judges than any administration in this century, more judges than any administration from decades ago.”
“This number is very consistent,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee. “We are very relieved.”
All will serve lifetime appointments, making them the most secure part of a Biden legacy that will be partly unraveled by Trump when he returns to the White House and his party takes control of the Senate next month.
“These men and women have the power to uphold or roll back fundamental rights,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “President Biden is proud of his record and is grateful to the Senate for its partnership in achieving this historic achievement.”
Beyond numbers, Biden is most proud of the types of judges he has chosen. The White House highlighted the “professional diversity” of its picks, which include “more than 45 public defenders, more than 25 civil rights attorneys, and at least 10 who have represented workers,” as well as judges who have worked on “immigration law, municipal law, and the sideline work of plaintiffs .”
Biden’s picks have broken with the tradition of presidents of both parties leaning toward choosing prosecutors and corporate lawyers as judges, an early goal of Biden’s White House in selecting nominees.
The White House also highlighted its “demographic diversity,” including the first Black woman on the Supreme Court — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, herself a former public defender, and a “record number of women, Black, Latino, AANHPI, Native American, Muslim American and LGBTQ -judges.”
But while Biden has surpassed Trump’s number, he trails his predecessor on the judicial front in one key respect: Trump has picked three Supreme Court justices, including two who shifted the court to the right, creating a 6-3 majority which is considered the largest. most conservative in almost a century.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tore into Biden’s list of judges.
“I found it astonishing that Senate Democrats were willing to appoint absolute fanatics as judges,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans will ensure Trump ends his second term with a total of more justices than Biden.
“They’re going to brag about having 235 instead of Trump’s 234,” Grassley told NBC News. “On January 20, 2029, Trump will brag about his 240.”
Given the fewer vacancies Trump and the incoming Republican Party-controlled Senate will inherit, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said it is highly unlikely Republicans will match that number in the next four years.
“That would be pretty impressive to beat,” Cornyn said.
Republicans don’t need to be “in any numerical competition” with Biden’s term; they just need to be “diligent in completing them because they are clearly lifelong agreements,” he said.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said the moment has little significance for Biden and Democrats.
“It means they got one more than 234, but one less than 236,” he said in an interview.
Kennedy said he believes Trump could “do things differently” and “become more involved” with lower court nominees during his second term, after largely focusing on his first term on the district court and appeals court left to others.
He recalled that he was not happy with all of Trump’s first-term choices.
“I thought his nominees in his first term were generally good. There were four or five that I helped kill,” Kennedy said. “I talked to him about it every time I did it. He always told me, if you have a nominee that I put forward who is not qualified, punch him in a new zip code. And I did that, together with a few of my colleagues.”
Blumenthal said the Democrats’ philosophy was that “every open position is the potential for an unqualified ideologue” to be picked by Trump and Republicans next year, who he said will “be around for decades.”
“I’m not ready to pop the champagne just yet, just because we’ve done a really good job over the last four years. We must prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and try to defeat nominees who are truly unqualified. We have our work to do. So the prospects are quite sobering.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
