President Biden is on Track to Fill Every Appellate Judge Vacancy, Break Record for Judges Appointed in First Two Years

     President Biden has already achieved a lot in terms of building back America's judiciary better. He appointed the most qualified nominees in a generation, saw Democratic judges outnumber Republican ones on the federal bench, ended the racial disparity for black Americans and Asian Americans on the federal bench, appointed more Native American federal judges than any president in history, appointed the first Muslim men and women to the bench, appointed the first black woman to the Supreme Court, renominated a number of appointees Mitch McConnell refused to consider under President Obama, prioritized public defenders and civil rights attorneys over corporate lawyers, appointed LGBT2SQIA+ and Hispanic judges at an unprecedented rate, extended this impact to the D.C. judiciary, and much more.

     The most important action President Biden can take right now is filling appellate court vacancies. He has already flipped the Second, Third, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, and can still flip the Fourth Circuit. Aside from appointing a conservative supermajority to the U.S. Supreme Court, the worst damage Donald Trump did to the federal bench came in his appointees to the circuit courts, better known as America's appeals court system. During his eight years, Barack Obama appointed 55 appellate judges; by contrast, in just four years, Donald Trump appointed 54. The good news is that President Biden is on track to fill every appellate judge vacancy. He has appointed 34 appeals court judges with just five vacancies remaining: one in the First Circuit, one in the Fifth Circuit, one in the Tenth Circuit, and two  in the Fourth Circuit. If all of these judges are appointed and confirmed, it would amount to 39 in two years, a new record and one that surpasses the number Trump achieved in his first two years. President Biden has already appointed more than 130 federal judges since he took office; getting these judges confirmed alone would be the highest number in any president's first two years. While district judges are also very important, if I were President Biden and only had time to appoint a handful of additional judges by the end of the year, I would fill all of the appeals court vacancies.

     There are dozens of bipartisan bills waiting to pass. However, the brunt of President Biden's agenda will be completed if Congress is able to pass the Honoring Our PACT Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which can be done by the end of this work period and would eliminate the political leverage and allow President Biden to cancel student debt this August. When Congress reconvenes in September, the primary focus, aside from the 2023 NDAA and Omnibus Appropriations Act and rapidly passing these bipartisan bills, has to be on confirming federal judges. To expedite this progress, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs to eliminate blue slips, which are slips that senators from a judge's home state are required to submit for the nomination to move forward. Mitch McConnell eliminated the blue slips when he held the Senate to pave the way for more than 230 of Trump's judges. For some reason, Leader Schumer reinstated blue slips, which has held up a number of judicial nominees. The most obvious example is Ron Johnson withholding his blue slip, effectively blocking the nomination of William Pocan, an LGBT2SQIA+ federal judge that HE recommended. This is personal to me, a bisexual man watching a historic nomination in my home state being blocked because of blue slips. The practice needs to end, for the sake of American democracy and civil rights that far-right judges are trying to erode.

     These nominees have included four to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The first was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was obviously promoted to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS can only handle a few dozen cases a year, and this court is the most powerful behind only the Supreme Court. Aside from having the final say in many matters of constitutional law, this court is also where many Supreme Court nominees are elevated from, by which I mean nearly every one in modern history. President Biden appointed J. Michelle Childs to this court, and she was recently confirmed. The nomination of Florence Y. Pan was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is awaiting a full Senate vote, while Brad Garcia has had a hearing and is awaiting a vote before the Judiciary Committee. These three are the next likely contenders for any possible Biden Supreme Court nomination. Florence Pan is the most likely option: she would give the Supreme Court its first female majority in U.S. history and be the first Asian and first Asian woman while bringing a degree of experience and bipartisan support: she has served on the D.C. Superior Court, the U.S. District Court for D.C. (appointed by Biden after Mitch McConnell refused to confirm her in 2016), and hopefully soon on the D.C. Court of Appeals seat vacated by Ketanji Brown Jackson. Garcia would also be a good choice: Democrats have appointed the first black woman and first black man to the Supreme Court, and he would be the first Hispanic man. (President Obama made Sonia Sotomayor the first Hispanic, first Hispanic woman, and first woman of color to serve in 2009.) He is also in his mid-30s, which would practically guarantee a span of service lasting four decades.

     In any case, filling these vacancies is something worthwhile, a victory worth celebrating and a cause worth continuing to fight for in the months and years to come.