Judges, one year later

I wrote about judicial appointments just about a year ago and took another look at the numbers today. A year ago I made the point that Biden’s judicial appointments had significantly altered the landscape at the district and circuit court levels, changing Republican domination at all three federal judiciary levels to narrow Dem leads at the two lower levels. The observation remains true today.

A year ago, Biden had 65 judicial appointments and overall there were 405 federal judges appointed by Democrats compared to 389 appointed by Republicans, a difference of 16.

Here are current Dem appointments to the judiciary, with the year ago number in parentheses: Biden: 130 (65); Obama 257 (286); Clinton 36 (57). And Republican appointees. Trump: 229 (229); Bush 43 126 (136); Bush 41: 11 (11); Reagan: 11 (13).

That alone is enough reason to justify voting for Biden. I heard so many “never Hillary” progressives lament that “I’m sick and tired of being told to vote for Hillary because of judges,” to which, I reply, “Why? That’s enough to justify your vote.”

Biden has kept up the pace: he has now appointed 130 judges, an addition of 65. And the Democrat lead has continued to grow, to a 423-377 margin.

Yes, that’s right: Biden appointed 65 new judges, but the number of Dem-appointed judges grew by only 18 and the number of Republican appointed judges shrank by only 12. A couple things seem to be happening.

First, it looks like the Democrats are clearing the decks. Of the 286 Obama-appointed judges a year ago, 29 of them stepped down while exactly a third of the 54 Clinton appointed judges did so. In the absence of other information, it looks like perhaps the Democrats learned from the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that judges approaching the end are retiring now to be sure Biden will get to replace them. Now that we’re living in a world of hyper-partisan judiciaries, this is prudent.

Each new judge replacing a Democrat replenishes control of that seat.

Republican-appointed judges, on the other hand, seem to be hanging on to their positions, perhaps in hope that they can be replaced by a Republican president in 2025.

As if the stakes weren’t high enough, this puts the spotlight on the 2024 election even more. It looks like there will be a large hangover of Republican-appointed judges who will have in some cases already delayed retirement by a year or more. The opportunity to replace 100 or more Republican-appointed judges is a special privilege. Let’s hope Dem voters don’t decide to sit this one out or cast a protest vote.