President Biden hit a milestone on Wednesday, officially appointing 200 judges to the federal bench and cementing what will be a long-lasting effect on the country’s judiciary, according to experts and lawmakers.
Biden is currently outpacing former President Trump, who made significant traction in judicial appointments. Trump was able to get nearly as many federal appellate judges confirmed as former President Obama before him, who notably had double the time.
“Judges matter. These men and women have the power to uphold basic rights or to roll them back,” Biden said in a statement recognizing his 200 appointments.
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Trump had 234 confirmed judges during his term, with a record number of appellate confirmations. (Getty Images/File)
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, slammed Biden’s nominees as “the most political nominees I’ve ever seen nominated for the federal bench.”
“Joe Biden, like Barack Obama before him, is thoroughly committed to transforming the federal judiciary and packing it with radical left-wing judges,” said Josh Hammer, senior counsel for the Article III Project.
Biden and his counterparts in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., celebrated the accomplishment, specifically highlighting the racial, ethnic and gender diversity among his slate of appointments.
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Schumer celebrated Biden’s milestone on Wednesday. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/File)
“We’re making our courts look more like America. It’s not just going to be partners, male White partners in fancy law firms. It’s much more diverse. And the bench is better for it. It’s something we can all be proud of,” Schumer told his colleagues in remarks on the Senate floor.
“127 women, 125 people of color, over twice as many women and more than three times as many people of color confirmed under the last administration,” he touted.
Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network, told Fox News Digital that the judges “weren’t chosen for their fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
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Biden appointed the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court: Ketanji Brown Jackson. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik/File)
“We’re going to have a lot of new political activists on the federal bench who think that judges should be super legislators,” Kennedy said.
“I’m sure these judges will be around for a while, like ours,” said Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “The next president will get to pick a lot of them, too. So, it’s important that you win these elections.”
According to Severino, the 2024 election will ultimately decide what the federal judiciary looks like for years.
“They’re going to serve for life,” she noted. “The judiciary really does ride on this upcoming election.”
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“When I clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2018, in the midst of President Trump’s term, I saw how courts can also be transformed in the other direction, for the better,” Hammer said. The conservative group’s senior counsel also noted the importance of the election in determining what the judiciary looks like.
Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices. (Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images/File)
While Biden is currently outpacing Trump at the same point in his presidency, its unclear whether he will be able to match the former president’s 234 confirmed judges by the end of his term.
Further, Biden has not been able to match Trump’s appointments at the appellate or Supreme Court level. Trump saw three of his Supreme Court justice nominees confirmed, setting in motion a majority conservative court that has ushered in landmark decisions such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
On the other hand, Biden has appointed one Supreme Court justice.
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The former president also racked up 51 appellate court judicial appointments, according to the Associated Press. Biden has been able to confirm 42 judges to that level, instead boasting a greater number of district judges than Trump.
Severino said that due to this disparity, the judges appointed by Trump are “more impactful.”