WHAT PROGRESSIVES DON’T KNOW: HOW BIDEN IS TRANSFORMING THE JUDICIARY
Many progressives are unhappy with the Biden Administration. They should be very happy if they tracked the many actions that every Cabinet Secretary appointed by President Biden has taken in areas ranging from national parks; conservation; environmental protection; and climate change to trade, agriculture, labor, and antitrust. When you look at Biden’s appointments, they are the most diverse in American history and the area that is most diverse is the judiciary. At a time when Biden is about to appoint the first Black woman justice to the Supreme Court, few Americans know much about the appointments Biden made to the bench in his first year in office.
The federal judiciary consists of federal district courts in every state. They are the trial courts. Cases appealed from these courts are appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals and there are 12 geographic circuits (California is in the Ninth Circuit with 7 other states, including western states, Alaska, and Hawaii.). Cases can be appealed from the circuit courts to the US Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. Of the 115 justices who have served on the Supreme Court, guess how many have been white men? If you guessed 108 you are correct. Guess how many have been Black? Two! Two! There have been a grand total of 5 women justices, four white and Sonia Sotomayor, who is Hispanic.
Do you think it is time for more women and women of color to be appointed to the Supreme Court?
What few Americans know is that President Biden has been changing the composition of the judiciary as no previous President has. In the history of the US, past presidents have appointed a total of 7 Black women to the federal appeals courts. In his first year in office, President Biden appointed 16 judges to the federal appeals courts and 8 of them were Black women! Of Biden’s next 10 appointments to the appellate court bench, 2 were Black women and of the 6 appellate court nominees currently pending, 3 are Black women. If all these highly qualified nominees make it past the hearings and are seated on the bench, Biden himself would have appointed twice the number of Black women to the appellate courts than all other American presidents combined!
The significance of Biden appointing this many highly qualified women to the federal bench is extraordinary. He has changed the norm and there is no going back. Many of these women are likely to serve for 15 – 25 years so their impact will be considerable. And equally important, young Black girls will see these women serving on the highest courts in the land and realize that they can aspire to be a federal court judge too, or perhaps a justice on the highest court in the land. Needless to say, the judges being appointed by Biden tend to be progressive, exactly what progressives want on the bench.