President Biden Will Have a Chance to Appoint at Least 200 Federal Judges in Two Years

     There are a lot of metrics by which to measure a president's impact on the federal judiciary. President Biden is appointing the most qualified judges since Washington, the most diverse judges of any president in history, the most liberal slate of judges in history, and the most judges who have had jobs like public defenders and civil rights attorneys of any president in U.S. history, and he is flipping dozens of courts in the process and, as a consequence, America's district and circuit court systems if not its Supreme Court. 

     One part of this is a game of numbers. I've already mentioned how, for the first time in years, judges appointed by Democrats outweigh those appointed by Republicans. I've already mentioned President Biden's impact on Washington, D.C.'s courts and on the district court system. Now, in terms of sheer numbers, it has become apparent that President Biden may have an advantage as well. During his four years in office, Donald Trump appointed an astonishing 264 federal judges: 234 to Article III courts (the district and circuit courts and U.S. Supreme Court), 29 to Article I courts (America's military, tax, and federal claims courts; includes three elevations to chief justice), and one to Article IV courts (territories). 

     Since he has taken office, President Biden has appointed 83 Article III judges: one to the Supreme Court, 20 to the circuit courts of appeals, and 62 to United States district courts. Meanwhile, there are currently four vacancies on the circuit courts of appeals, 71 vacancies on U.S. district courts, 18 vacancies that will occur on the circuit courts before President Biden's term is up, and 21 district court vacancies that will occur in the same span. Virtually all of these vacancies will take place in 2022; judges are not announcing a retirement three years early. Doing the math here, President Biden will have the opportunity to appoint one Supreme Court justice, 42 district court judges, and 154 district court judges over the course of two years: this equates to 197 Article III judges, or nearly twice the rate at which Trump appointed them. 

     In terms of Article I judges, President Biden has appointed three: two to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and one to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. There are currently five vacancies, while Biden has appointed Elaine D. Kaplan as Chief Judge of the Court of Federal Claims. Nine appointments and/or elevations in two years is much more slowly than Donald Trump appointed Article I judges, but that's okay given both Biden's chances for Article III judges and Article IV judges. President Biden has not appointed any Article IV judges, but there are currently three vacancies, which would give him more appointments than Trump just in 2022 by filling these and allow him to make the District Courts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands liberal for the next decade while deadlocking the District Court of the Virgin Islands for the same amount of time.

     Donald Trump appointed 264 federal judges to America's diverse federal court system in just four years; however, if he continues acting quickly, President Biden can appoint 209 in just two years. This would put him well on his way to far outdoing Donald Trump when it comes to federal judges and would dismantle one of the most debilitating aspects of the Orange Dictator's legacy while moving America's federal court systems the furthest left they have gone in a century.