Senate Democrats confirmed President Biden’s 200th federal court nominee on Wednesday, putting the White House on track to surpass the number of lifetime judges appointed by former President Trump. Even as lawmakers celebrated the milestone, the Senate Judiciary Committee provided a stark reminder that some Biden nominees won’t get through the upper chamber without a fight, reports Courthouse News Service. Democrats were ecstatic as the Senate voted 66-28 to confirm the 200th nominee, Angela Martinez for an Arizona vacancy.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the slate of Biden nominees have been among some of the most diverse ever selected for the federal judiciary. “For too long, the bench didn’t look like America,” Schumer said, “it only looked like a portion of America. We’re making our courts look more like America, something we can all be proud of.” The Biden administration has confirmed twice as many women and three times as many people of color compared with Trump appointees. There’s also professional diversity among the judges confirmed under Biden, he added. “It’s not just partners at big law firms and prosecutors,” said Schumer. “We have public defenders, we have legal aid lawyers, consumer lawyers, immigration lawyers — lawyers who have represented all kinds of people who deserve representation on the bench.” Meanwhile, a partisan firestorm raged in the committee, where Republicans ground proceedings to a halt during a confirmation hearing for the latest slate of nominees. On the nomination of Sarah Netburn for a New York judgeship, GOP lawmakers cited a case she handled as a magistrate judge in which she granted the request of an incarcerated transgender woman who asked to move to a women’s prison from a men’s prison. The petitioner was a registered sex offender serving a sentence for distributing child porn. Republicans said the woman had served an 18-year sentence for sexually assaulting both an underage boy and girl, calling Netburn’s decision to allow the prison transfer a political act that put other incarcerated women at risk.