As partially detailed in this CBS News piece, headlined "Biden announces first slate of judicial nominees with picks that would make history," Prez Joe Biden has formally announced a first set of planned nominations for judicial openings. Here are basics:
President Biden on Tuesday rolled out his first slate of judicial nominees, announcing candidates with diverse backgrounds and professional qualifications as he begins to make his own stamp on the nation's district and circuit courts. Of the president's 11 judicial picks, three set to be nominated to the federal district courts would make history if confirmed by the evenly divided the Senate. The White House said the candidates underscore Mr. Biden's commitment to diversity on the federal bench.
"This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession," Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. "Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong."
The president intends to nominate three Black women to fill vacancies on a trio of circuit courts: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the District of Columbia Circuit; Tiffany Cunningham to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Federal Circuit; and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals....
In addition to announcing nominees to the circuit courts, Mr. Biden also revealed his candidates to fill open seats on federal district courts in Maryland, New Jersey, the District of Columbia and New Mexico, as well as the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Three of Mr. Biden's nominees to the district courts would make history if confirmed by the Senate: Judge Zahid Quraishi, tapped for the district court in New Jersey, would be the first Muslim-American federal judge; Judge Florence Pan would be the first Asian-American woman on the district court in D.C.; and Judge Lydia Griggsby would be the first woman of color to serve as a federal judge in Maryland.
With 72 vacancies on the federal courts and another 28 seats set to become open in the coming weeks and months, Mr. Biden has been under pressure to prioritize judicial nominees and mount his own effort to reshape the federal bench after former President Donald Trump succeeded in appointing more than 230 judges to the courts, most of them white men. The president has also been pushed by progressive groups to select nominees with not only diverse backgrounds, but also an array of legal experience, including public defenders, civil rights lawyers and legal aid attorneys.
The full list of the nominees is available via this White House press release. The nine women and two men on this list seem to represent an array of diverse professional histories as well as personal backgrounds (e.g., I count ten different law schools represented). Long-time readers know I have been a long-time fan of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in part because she served on the US Sentencing Commission and was once a federal public defender. I was not surprised at all to see her name on this list, and it is great to see a good number of additional nominees with significant public defender histories (Judges Jackson-Akiwumi and Boardman, Margaret Strickland). And I was pleasantly suprised to see the list include someone I attended high school with (Judge Griggsby) and a fairly recent graduate of The Oho State University Moritz College of Law (Judge Puttagunta).
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