Demand Justice Applauds The White House and Senate for Building a Stronger, Better Judiciary 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 19, 2024

CONTACT: [email protected]

Confirmation of California judges pushes number of Biden confirmations to 235

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Senate confirmed Benjamin Cheeks and Serena Murillo to two federal district courts in California, pushing the total number of judges nominated by President Biden and successfully confirmed by the Senate to 235, one more than Donald Trump did in his first term. Following this milestone, Demand Justice Managing Director Maggie Jo Buchanan released the following statement: 

“President Biden’s judicial appointees are the kind of fair-minded judges needed going into a second Trump administration. Over the last four years, the White House, Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats made tremendous progress in changing what it means to be a federal judge in this country. While some qualified nominees deserving of confirmation remain pending, the impact of this work over the past four years is clear. Even beyond the critical emphasis on diversifying the federal bench demographically, these nominees came with historic levels of professional diversity. We saw dozens of judges from underrepresented backgrounds like public defense, civil rights litigation, and labor law confirmed to the bench.

“These new judges will bring perspectives and experiences that have been sorely missed in our federal judiciary and improve the administration of justice overall. 

“Donald Trump has already shown us the kind of far-right loyalists he plans to appoint to the judiciary. These newly-confirmed Biden judges will serve as a critical line of defense against the extreme and dangerous policies proposed by Project 2025–policies the American people oppose–that we expect will be evaluated and considered in court. President Biden’s nominees can be counted on to protect our rights and freedoms in the years to come.”

President Biden’s judicial nominees have been majority women and people of color, with a third of them being women of color. In Trump’s first term, only 16 percent of his judicial nominees were people of color and only 24 percent were women.

# # #