America's District Court System is Now Leaning to the Left
The federal bench is a coequal branch of government, and molding it is one of the president's greatest responsibilities. The U.S. district courts, circuit courts, and Supreme Court have the power to determine whether or not any legislation or executive action the president passes is constitutional or not as well as to issue rulings on things like immigration and LGBT2SQIA+ rights.
America's district court system, at least, is now leaning to the left. On February 1st, 2022, the Senate confirmed Bridget M. Brennan, Charles E. Fleming, and David A. Ruiz to serve as judges on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. This was consequential for a number of reasons: all three were historic firsts for the court in terms of professional and personal diversity, and the confirmation of three judges secured a Democratic majority on the court. More broadly, however, district court judges appointed by Democrats now outweighed district court judges appointed by Republicans.
As of February 10th, 2022, there are 316 Democratic district court judges versus 294 Republican ones. This does not include the dozens of Biden nominees currently pending before the Senate. However, the overall number of judges does not have very much weight because there are 94 separate district courts across the country. What does have weight is the fact that, by the time all vacancies in the district courts have been filled, Democrats will control or tie 68 of the 94 district courts across the nation, while just 26 will be GOP-controlled.
This arduous process, however, is just the start: President Biden needs to appoint more district court judges than President Trump did. Next up is the United States circuit court system, where Democrats currently control six of the 13 courts but have a chance to flip a seventh and tie an eighth (including one court that could be unanimous) while ensuring the simple majority of overall judges in the system are Democratic appointees, and they have a chance to appoint more judges than Donald Trump did. This system is closer to flipping than some might expect.
It's really important not to talk about the judiciary this way. Democrats do not "control" any district courts. The judges themselves may not even have a partisan history. Especially in the federal district courts, where your case gets referred to a single judge, it may be small consolation that all the other judges that weren't assigned to your case were appointed by the other party. No one controls that judge but that judge.
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