The Last Chance To Confirm Biden’s Fair and Qualified Judges

With the election of Donald Trump to once again serve as president, the next few weeks are the last opportunity to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominees to our district and circuit courts.

Every judge the Senate confirms during the lame duck is one fewer vacancy Trump can fill when he takes office. Every confirmation is one more judge who could bolster the guardrails of democracy to check the egregious abuses of power Trump has already promised.

There’s no need to speculate on the types of judges Trump will nominate to fill every vacancy the Senate leaves open. Trump appointed 234 judges during his first presidency, including three Supreme Court justices. Among them were anti-abortion activists like Matthew Kacsmaryk and sycophants like Aileen Cannon who, for the record, was herself confirmed in the 2020 lame duck session.

The six Trump judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have transformed that court into one of the most extreme in the nation, issuing rulings that even the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority has had to rein in.

Notably, in the wake of the election, Trump and his transition team have indicated a desire to nominate judges who are “even more bold and fearless.” That could mean a resurgence of nominees the likes of Brett Talley, who defended the KKK, or Jeff Mateer, who claimed transgender youth were part of Satan’s plan. Both nominations were previously withdrawn, but this time around, Trump has surrounded himself with a more sophisticated legal team and is buoyed by a friendlier Senate stacked with more loyalists and fewer moderates. 

Given that judges — and justices — tend to retire or take senior status under administrations of their own party, we already know 34 Republican-appointed circuit court judges and 84 district court judges will be eligible to retire or take senior status in the next four years. Including existing vacancies, Trump could have well over 100 opportunities to appoint new judges in his first year alone. Because of his split terms, he may even become one of the rare presidents who can replace his own previous nominees with younger judges.

Most cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court, so who sits on our lower courts matters terribly.

Imagine living for the next several decades with nearly half of the 890 Article III judges in the country having been appointed by Trump, to say nothing of a full Trump majority on the Supreme Court.

The Senate cannot add to these opportunities by leaving nominees on the table this year. As senators returned post-election, there were 31 nominees who were still awaiting confirmation, including five circuit court nominees. More than half of them simply require their final floor vote, and the rest will advance quickly through the Senate Judiciary Committee, as some already have. Confirming each and every one of these nominees will bring Biden’s total to 244 judges and leave only around 38 vacancies at the start of Trump’s term.

These nominees deserve to be confirmed. Some have been waiting for over a year since their original nomination despite being eminently qualified. They will add important diversity to the federal bench, where it is very much still lacking, and they will bring important legal experience in civil rights, labor law and public defense.

Consider Adeel Mangi, nominated to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He’s now been waiting a full year since his nomination in November of 2023 despite an impressive legal background that led him to be named one of the top 100 trial lawyers in the nation for two years running. His caseload has also included numerous pro bono civil rights cases. Mangi would become the first-ever Muslim judge to sit on one of the circuit courts. The first-ever Muslim judge confirmed to any federal court was also a Biden nominee.

Mangi’s confirmation would cause the 3rd Circuit to be split evenly between Republican- and Democrat-appointed judges, but handing the vacancy to Trump would ensure a conservative majority on a court expected to hear critical voting rights cases in the coming years.

Ryan Park, nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has dedicated his legal career to public service. In addition to several prestigious clerkships and several years in private practice, Park has served as solicitor general for the state of North Carolina since 2022. The son of Korean immigrants, Park would bring important AAPI representation to the bench as the first Asian American to serve on the 4th  Circuit.

Another incredible nominee is Karla Campbell, nominated to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who brings experience in labor law, a field significantly underrepresented on our courts. She has spent more than a decade advocating for workers — primarily in the federal courts — litigating union/management disputes, fighting for employee benefits and negotiating community benefit agreements for local organizations.

Imagine not having judges like these and instead having more of the agenda-driven extremists Trump plans to appoint. That’s the reality if Senate Democrats don’t confirm each and every one of them.

If every Democrat commits to staying in Washington, D.C. and showing up for votes — including nights, weekends and holidays, if necessary — confirming all of the remaining nominees is doable. Attendance matters, however, as Senate Republicans are committed to blocking these nominees if possible. Trump himself has called on Republican leadership to prevent confirmations during the lame duck, although if Democrats show up for votes and get in line behind Biden’s nominees, there’s little they’ll be able to do.Every judge counts.

Most cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court, so who sits on our lower courts matters terribly. With Trump’s extremists waiting in the wings, we can leave no vacancy behind. The Senate should stop at nothing to minimize the harm we know that Trump will do starting in January, and there’s no good reason not to.

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Keith Thirion is the interim co-president and vice president of strategy at Alliance for Justice. As a contributor to Democracy Docket, Thirion writes about the U.S. Supreme Court, judicial reform and the importance of state courts.