Senate Democrats rush to confirm judges before Trump takes office

The U.S. Senate’s Democratic majority began a crusade on Tuesday to confirm as many new federal judges nominated by President Joe Biden as possible to avoid leaving vacancies that Republican Donald Trump could fill after taking office on Jan. 20.

With Republicans set to take control of the chamber on Jan. 3, the Senate on Tuesday held a confirmation vote on one of Biden’s judicial nominees – former prosecutor April Perry – for the first time since Trump won the Nov. 5 presidential election. The Senate voted 51-44 in favor of her becoming a U.S. district court judge in Illinois.

All told, Biden has announced another 30 judicial nominees who are awaiting Senate confirmation votes. Sixteen have already have been reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and are awaiting a final confirmation vote by the full Senate. Another 14 nominees are awaiting committee review.

The U.S. Constitution assigns to the Senate the power to confirm a president’s nominees for life-tenured seats on the federal judiciary.

“We are going to get as many done as we can,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Trump made 234 judicial appointments during his first four years in office, the second most of any president in a single term, and succeeded in moving the judiciary rightward – including building a 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court with three appointees.

Biden has appointed a host of liberal judges. Since the beginning of his presidency in 2021, the Senate has confirmed 214 Biden judicial nominees, including liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. About two-thirds were women, and the same share were racial minorities.

Senate Democrats are under pressure to swiftly confirm the remaining nominees, along with any new picks Biden may name in the waning weeks of his presidency.

How many nominees Senate Democrats will be able to confirm remains to be seen. Trump in a social media post on Sunday called on the Senate to halt approving Biden’s nominees, saying, “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges.”

Billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk on Tuesday wrote on social media that “activist” judicial nominees are “bad for the country.” Mike Davis, a Trump ally at the conservative judicial advocacy group Article III Project, in another post urged Senate Republicans to vote down all judicial appointments until January.

“The American people voted for monumental change,” Davis wrote on social media last week. “Grind the Senate to a halt.”

Current Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s office declined comment. McConnell has consistently opposed Biden’s nominees and, as majority leader, was instrumental in getting Trump’s previous nominees confirmed.

Trump’s judicial appointees have been involved in major decisions welcomed by conservatives including Supreme Court rulings rolling back abortion rights, widening gun rights, rejecting race-conscious collegiate admissions and limiting the power of federal regulatory agencies.

Judicial nominees require a simple majority for confirmation. Democrats currently hold a slim 51-49 majority, meaning that they can ill afford any defections or absences if Republicans show up in force to oppose Biden’s nominees during the chamber’s post-election “lame duck” session.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has said he would not vote for any nominee who does not garner at least one Republican vote. Must-pass legislation like a spending bill to avert a government shutdown also may consume precious time during the session.