US Senate Democrats rush to confirm Biden’s judges before Trump takes office

After Republicans take control of the chamber on January 3, the Senate is expected to vote on one of Biden’s nominees — former prosecutor April Perry. The Democratic president nominated her for a position on the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Currently, 31 judicial candidates are awaiting a vote in the Senate, including Perry, who was previously nominated by Biden. She is among the 17 nominees who have passed the Senate Judiciary Committee’s review and are awaiting a final vote by the full Senate. Another 14 candidates are still waiting for committee consideration.

The US Constitution grants the Senate the authority to confirm presidential nominations for lifetime appointments to federal courts.

"We are going to get as many done as we can," Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Pressure and urgency

In his first four years in office, Trump made 234 judicial appointments, the second-highest number of any president in a single term. He created a 6-3 conservative majority on the US Supreme Court with three appointed justices.

Biden, in contrast, has appointed many liberal judges. Since the beginning of his presidency in 2021, the Senate has confirmed 213 judicial nominees, including liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. About two-thirds of these appointees are women; the same proportion are from racial minority groups.

Democrats in the Senate are under pressure to quickly confirm the remaining nominees and any new candidates Biden may announce in the final weeks of his presidency. It remains to be seen how many of Biden's nominees will be confirmed by the Senate.

On Sunday, November 10, Trump posted on social media calling on the Senate to stop confirming Biden's nominees, stating: “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges.”

Judges previously appointed by Trump have participated in key decisions celebrated by conservatives. These include Supreme Court rulings that overturned abortion rights, expanded gun rights, rejected race-based college admissions, and limited the powers of federal regulatory agencies.

Judicial nominations are confirmed by a simple majority vote. Currently, Democrats hold a narrow majority of 51-49, meaning they cannot afford any defections or absences if Republicans mount opposition to Biden’s candidates.

Every possible candidate

Biden’s allies have stated that advancing the remaining nominees will help him solidify his legacy by diversifying the federal judiciary, which white men have long dominated.

Meanwhile, Biden has continued making judicial appointments. On Friday, November 8, he announced his first post-election nominee, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who, after a failed bid to become Manhattan District Attorney in the 2021 Democratic primaries, was nominated for a position on the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

A spokesperson for Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chair of the Judiciary Committee, stated that he “aims to confirm every possible nominee before the end of this Congress.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates noted that during Trump’s first term, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed 18 judges before Biden took office after winning the 2020 election.

Five candidates for influential federal appellate courts are awaiting confirmation. Republicans have claimed they have the votes to block two of these nominees. One is Adeel Mangi, who would become the first Muslim federal appellate judge, and the other is North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park, who unsuccessfully defended a racially discriminatory hiring policy in the Supreme Court.

Additionally, Biden has nominated 26 candidates for district court positions. Among them is April Perry, the former prosecutor who now works at GE HealthCare in Chicago and will join the Illinois judiciary. Biden nominated her in April 2024 after Republican Senator J.D. Vance blocked her previous appointment to head the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago.

Vance began blocking Biden’s nominations for positions in the US Department of Justice in 2023 after Special Counsel Jack Smith secured the first of two federal indictments against Trump, who later selected Vance as his running mate for vice president.

US presidential and congressional elections

On Tuesday, November 5, the United States held presidential elections. According to early results, Republican Donald Trump won, securing 312 electoral votes, while his opponent Kamala Harris garnered only 226 votes.

In addition to the presidential race, Americans also voted for a new composition of both houses of Congress.

As a result of the vote count, Republicans gained a slim majority in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party took control of the Senate, which had previously been under Democratic control.