Journalist
HuffPost
PHOTO: Twitter
Jennifer Bendery reports for HuffPost:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-judicial-nominees-diverse_n_6138c48ee4b0eab0ada03532
President Joe Biden announced another historic slate of judicial nominees on Wednesday who would bring badly needed diversity to the nation’s federal courts.
His picks also begin to address a major vacancy problem on California’s courts.
Biden announced a total of eight new judicial nominees; three would fill seats on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and five would fill seats on U.S. district courts. All are up for lifetime appointments.
With Wednesday’s nominees, Biden has now nominated a total of 43 people to federal judgeships. Thanks in part to the Democrat-led Senate, he has been confirming judges faster than any president in more than 50 years by this point in their terms.
His latest nominees also reflect his push to bring more diversity to the federal bench, both professionally and demographically. The courts have long been represented by white, male judges with backgrounds as corporate attorneys or prosecutors. President Barack Obama helped to diversify the courts, adding historic numbers of women and LGBTQ judges, for example. But former President Donald Trump reversed that trend by overwhelmingly nominating straight, white, male, right-wing ideologues.
As a candidate, Biden vowed to bring a diversity of perspectives onto the courts, even promising to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if and when a seat opens up there. He’s kept his word; so far, his court picks have been public defenders, civil rights lawyers, voting rights lawyers and historic firsts with Native American and Muslim American picks.
Wednesday’s nominees include people with backgrounds at legal civil rights organizations, too. Thomas worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Urias and Vera both worked for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
California’s senators praised Biden for his six picks for courts located in their state.
“If confirmed, this slate of nominees will bring historic personal and professional diversity to California’s federal bench,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). “Our justice system needs the experience and unique perspectives these public servants bring.”
But California needs far more nominees than Biden put forward Wednesday. The state still has a whopping 15 vacancies on its federal courts, in part because the state’s two U.S. senators aren’t moving quickly enough to recommend people to the White House to fill those seats.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) acknowledged there is more work to be done here.
“There are 15 additional vacancies on California’s district courts that need to be filled immediately and more expected next year,” Feinstein said. “I look forward to continuing to work with President Biden and Senator Padilla to ensure that the remaining vacancies on the federal courts in California are filled with well-qualified judicial candidates who reflect the makeup of the state.”
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Read the complete story at the link.
It’s an important step — but only a first step in the process of creating a diverse progressive Federal Judiciary, from top to bottom!
Meanwhile, a house built on a bad foundation is in trouble! In this case, that crumbling foundation is the nearly 600-judge U.S. Immigration Court at both the trial and appellate levels.
This “court” system, with nationwide jurisdiction and life or death authority over millions of lives and American families, is regressive, dysfunctional, and non-diverse, particularly when taking into account the composition of the American communities most directly affected by it’s too often defective, unprofessional, and biased decision making. That’s hardly surprising, because it was largely expanded, packed, weaponized, staffed, and directed in the “image” of Jeff Sessions, Billy Barr, and Gauleiter Stephen Miller!
Unlike Article III Judges, Immigration Judges currently are considered “DOJ Attorneys” who are selected outside the competitive Civil Service, have no “tenure” in their quasi-judicial positions, are subject to the control of the Attorney General, and can be reassigned, or in some cases terminated, at the will of the Attorney General. In simple terms, Garland could fix this badly broken system, but hasn’t done so.
The sorry condition of today’s Immigration Courts (“EOIR”) is particularly disgraceful when one considers the wide, diverse, progressive pool of potential judicial talent available in the private/NGO/sector who were either discouraged from applying under Trump or passed over in favor of lesser-qualified candidates perceived (whether accurately or not) to be more receptive and obedient to the overtly White Nationalist, xenophobic stance promoted by Trump’s DOJ.
To date, Garland has replaced zero (0) of the Trump judicial appointees. He has hired no notable progressive judges as inspirational leaders. He “promoted” one notable progressive to be among the several dozen “Assistant Chief Immigration Judges.” He outrageously appointed his first 27 Immigration Judges from among those “preselected” by Barr under defective procedures that have been universally condemned by progressive experts!
For the most part, without any progressive judicial leadership, precedents, or procedures, EOIR rambles on producing the same sloppy, haste-makes-waste, anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, racially and misogynistically tinged decisions that were the “hallmark” of the Trump-era EOIR.
If things don’t change quickly, I guarantee that American progressives will come to rue the squandered opportunity to radically reform EOIR and convert it into a model progressive judiciary that will showcase due-process-focused judging, innovation, and best judicial practices while saving lives and promoting racial justice, gender rights, and equal justice for all at the critical “retail level” of our justice system!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
09-10-21