President Biden and Senate Democrats are racing to confirm more judicial nominees than former President Donald Trump did while in office.
However, they face a difficult schedule to get it done, with several time-sensitive pieces of legislation due this fall and an entire month out of session in October.
Prior to the August break, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced that seven nominees had been advanced out of committee to be considered for confirmation. It’s unclear when these votes will take place once the Senate is back.
Democrats face significant time constraints in the Biden effort to appoint more judges than Trump. (Reuters)
A spokesperson for Durbin told Fox News Digital in a statement, “Senate Democrats are in a strong position to confirm additional Biden-Harris judicial nominees through the rest of the year. Chair Durbin will continue holding nominations hearings and markups through the end of the Congress, as well as push for floor votes on these highly qualified, diverse nominees who are bringing balance to the federal judiciary.”
So far, Biden has appointed 205 federal judges in his term, compared to the 204 whom Trump had appointed, as of Sept. 5, 2020, according to the Heritage Foundation’s judicial tracker.
Both Biden and Trump have put a renewed emphasis on the federal judiciary, each focusing on quickly facilitating as many appointments as they could during their terms. Their appointments during one term have rivaled those of their predecessors, who had double the time to confirm them.
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Biden hit the 200 appointments milestone in May. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Trump was particularly successful at appointing more judges to influential appellate court positions. In fact, Trump appointed nearly the same number of such judges in his sole term as former President Barack Obama did in both of his.
In May, Biden’s White House had officially outpaced Trump at the same time in his term, appointing 200 federal judges. “Judges matter. These men and women have the power to uphold basic rights or to roll them back,” he said in a statement at the time, emphasizing his commitment to judicial appointments.
While Biden was ahead of Trump in the key metric of judicial appointments in the spring, he’d fallen back on par with the former president by August when the Senate departed Washington, D.C., for recess. The lengthy blocks of out-of-session time in both August and October pose a significant obstacle to Democrats in the Senate getting future Biden judges confirmed.
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Chuck Schumer said the spending bill needs to be done in a bipartisan manner. (Reuters)
Not only this, but several time-sensitive legislative fights are shaping up in Congress that are likely to take up valuable time. A partial government shutdown looms at the end of this month if Congress isn’t able to agree on a spending deal before the deadline. This could prove difficult, as conservative Republicans in the House and Senate, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have demanded a six-month continuing resolution (CR) to keep spending levels steady until March, as well as an attached bill to require proof of citizenship to vote.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act’s inclusion is likely to be a nonstarter for Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital that the spending deal needed to be bipartisan when asked about the Republican-backed measure.
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Durbin chairs the judiciary committee. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
While five House Democrats voted in favor of it in the lower chamber, it doesn’t seem that it is enough for Schumer, who has refused to give it a vote on the Senate floor.
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Once September is up, Congress is scheduled for an additional month-long recess. When they return for November and December, which each have holidays to consider, there will be minimal time to get final judges confirmed.
Schumer’s office did not provide comment to Fox News Digital regarding his confidence in getting more judges appointed than Trump, given the time constraints.
