The White House is working quietly with Senate Democrats to ensure President Biden has a steady stream of candidates in federal courts, according to people familiar with the matter and an administration official.
Why is it important?: Biden wants the federal judiciary to better reflect the country’s demographics and try to protect its ongoing legislative agenda from a judicial system currently dominated by Trump nominees.
- With Democrats controlling the White House and Senate, federal-minded federal judges are already announcing their retirement.
- The first announcements of administration candidates are expected to be offered this month, but they could arrive in April.
The plot: Allies outside the White House say DC District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is black and 50, is likely to be nominated for a position on the prestigious Circuit Court of Appeals. DC.
- This could prepare her for the Supreme Court if Judge Stephen Breyer, 82, retired.
Driving the news: The White House has 10 appeals court openings, including two in DC’s appellate court, and about 60 vacancies in federal district courts.
- It is putting an edge not only on ethnic diversity, but on the background and experience of candidates, seeking to attract judges from outside the usual group of corporate appeals lawyers.
- Age will matter, but not as much as Trump.
- “We make sure there is a pipe ready,” an administration official said. “We want a steady supply.”
- Biden may not be able to match the former president’s footprint in the courts (he obtained confirmation from 234 federal judges, including three Supreme Court judges), but he has indicated to Democrats that he plans to move quickly to fill any vacancies he can.
Between lines: In December, new White House attorney Dana Remus asked Democratic senators to send to the White House the names of possible U.S. District Court judges within 45 days of any vacancy announcement.
- The White House will take the lead in the most powerful Circuit Court courts, a rank below the Supreme Court.
- He is also considering announcing a list of candidates, as President George W. Bush did during a Rose Garden ceremony in May 2001.
- The strategy would be to blow up the public and the Senate with a display of diversity and at the same time show strength in numbers.
What they say: “If you have a list of judges, it will give you the opportunity to have various public defenders, civil rights lawyers and labor lawyers to really show the breadth of the legal profession and what Biden is trying to achieve in a way that doesn’t you can with just one or two judges, ”said Christopher Kang, co-founder and chief executive of Demand Justice.
- The Biden administration is unprepared to publicly disclose its strategy.
- “It’s less about whether the first nomination is singular or plural,” the administration official said. “The lesson learned was that you have to have a steady battery of candidates.”