President Joe Biden took to the White House State Dining Room on Thursday to celebrate the confirmation of 235 of his judicial nominees to the federal judiciary, a feat he touted as a “major milestone” that will help “reestablish the safeguards that were built into the Constitution.”
“I know they’ll continue to uphold our nation's founding principles of liberty, justice, equality — and do it for decades to come,” Biden said.
The 235 figure marks the largest number of confirmations in a single presidential term since former President Jimmy Carter, according to the White House. It also surpasses the number President-elect Donald Trump saw confirmed in his first term by one and comes just weeks before Biden is set to hand the White House back over to him.
Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asserted that U.S. institutions are “in jeopardy” and that his selections for the bench will be a “vital check” on Congress and the executive branch.
“These judges will be independent, they'll be fair, and they'll be impartial and respect the rule of law,” Biden said. “And most importantly — I never thought I'd be saying this — they’ll uphold the Constitution.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the pair tasked with shepherding Biden’s nominees through congressional confirmation, were also present for Thursday’s remarks. The Democratic leaders made confirming Biden’s picks for judgeships a major priority of the current lame-duck session of Congress.
On Thursday, Schumer, who called the benchmark “historic,” asserted that incoming leaders are “saying things about undercutting the wellsprings of our democracy.”
“The good news is that these judges will be a barrier against attacks on our democratic institutions,” Schumer said, adding that district judges will have the opportunity to be the first voice on issues such as voting rights.
Durbin noted that reaching the 235 milestone means one out of every four judges currently serving on the federal bench were nominated by Biden.
Of the 235 nominees Biden saw confirmed, 45 were to the nation’s courts of appeals, 187 to district courts, two to the United States Court of International Trade and one to the Supreme Court, according to the White House.
Biden also touted the diversity of his picks — as he has throughout his time in office — both in terms of career backgrounds as well as race and gender. According to the White House, Biden selected 45 public defenders, more than 25 civil rights lawyers and at least 10 individuals who have represented workers in addition to a record number of women, Black, Latino, AANHPI, Native American, Muslim-American and LGBTQ judges.
The president also nominated the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court and more Black women to circuit courts than every other administration combined.
“I've appointed the most demographically diverse slate of judicial nominees ever in the history of America — represents all of America and the best of America,” Biden said.
Not long after securing another term, Trump took to his social media site Truth Social to accuse Democrats of “trying to stack the Courts” and urging the GOP to show up to vote and “hold the line.”
Eighteen of the 234 judges confirmed during the first Trump administration were cleared through the Senate in the period between Biden’s 2020 election victory and his 2021 inauguration. Senate Democrats have confirmed 22 of Biden’s choices since Trump’s election.
Last month, Biden vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have added dozens of new judgeships to the federal judiciary after the House waited until after Trump’s victory to bring it to the floor.