President-elect Trump Appointed Three Supreme Court Justices, But Biden Outpaced Him in Federal Judges
President-elect Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his first White House term, significantly reshaping the nation’s top court. However, President Biden outpaced Trump in the past four years, appointing more federal judges than Trump.
According to fresh data from the Federal Judiciary Center, Biden is slated to end his tenure having installed 228 judges to U.S. district and appellate courts, including record numbers of female and minority judges to district courts across the country. Sixty percent of the judges appointed by Biden are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or part of another racial or ethnic minority group, the highest percentage for any U.S. president.
Biden’s judicial appointments, both in their diversity and scope, bear similarities to another single-term Democratic president, Jimmy Carter. Carter did not appoint anyone to the Supreme Court, but he appointed more than 260 federal and appellate court judges during his four years in office, including record numbers of women and minority judges, helping the courts better reflect the populations they represented.
Most notably, Carter is credited with installing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a decision that set her up later for promotion when Democratic President Clinton tapped her for the nation’s highest court in 1993.
Biden and Senate Democrats worked together to confirm his judicial nominees in the final days of the 118th Congress, while they still held a narrow majority in the chamber. This surge in confirmations helped Biden achieve his goal of appointing more federal judges than Trump.