by Jorge Gomez • 4 minutes
President Biden is getting closer to matching President-elect Donald Trump’s record on federal judges. The U.S. Senate confirmed several judicial nominees this week, bringing the total number of confirmations during the current administration to 220. Biden needs less than a dozen judges to catch up to the 231 confirmed in Trump’s first term.
First Liberty previously warned about the alarming record of some judges confirmed this week.
On Tuesday, Trump called for a halt in judicial confirmations until he takes office.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump wrote on social media. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota—who will take over as Majority Leader in January—echoed the call for members of his party to hold their ground.
“If Sen. Schumer thought Senate Republicans would just roll over and allow him to quickly confirm multiple Biden-appointed judges to lifetime jobs in the final weeks of the Democrat majority, he thought wrong,” Thune told ABC News.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said that the Democratic majority “will keep working to confirm as many of President Biden’s judicial nominees as we can before the end of the year.”
“We’re not done. There are more judges to consider and confirm. We’re going to spend the rest of this week and the rest of this year focused on confirming them,” Schumer said on Tuesday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin of Illinois said that voting on weekends and even during parts of the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks is a possibility.
“I wouldn’t rule those out and Schumer has not ruled them out either,” Durbin said. “I hope that the Republicans will at least be as cooperative with us as we were with them.”
Politicians and judicial activists on the far Left have increased the pressure on Senate Democrats. Demand Justice—an organization that has supported many controversial nominees as well as dangerous reforms to the judiciary—launched a campaign telling the Senate to do “whatever it takes” to confirm more radical judges.
“It’s unlikely that all of the nominees now pending before the Senate will be confirmed, some are highly controversial and may not have enough votes,” said Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “There are also a few important pieces of legislation that Congress has to address and [the] number of days available for Senate floor activity is dwindling.”
“It is critical that Republican senators unite in opposition and show up during the lame duck session to try and block any more radical and unfit Biden judicial nominees from being confirmed to lifetime positions on the federal bench,” wrote Carrie Severino, President of the Judicial Crisis Network.
Many of the Biden administration’s judicial nominees have a dismal record on religious freedom. First Liberty has consistently warned that they could be hostile to people of faith and religious groups. They may also unconstitutionally advance their own policy agendas from the federal bench.
First Liberty is keeping an eye on several nominees whose records have generated significant controversy and opposition. The following are waiting for a confirmation vote:
Americans confront increasing attacks on their religious liberty rights. Now, more than ever, our federal courts need judges who are committed the Constitution and the rule of law—who will rule according to principle and not political ideology. First Liberty will continue to monitor judicial nominees and to provide the facts about those with a radical or unacceptable record.
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