Demand Justice Statement on First Biden Nominees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 30, 2020 

CONTACT: [email protected]

WASHINGTON, DC— Following the Biden administration’s announcement of its first batch of judicial nominees, Demand Justice Executive Director Brian Fallon released the following statement: 

“With this many nominees for lifetime judgeships, President Biden is outpacing both Trump and Obama by a healthy margin, and it is a welcome shift to see this level of prioritization of judges. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a rising star whose time on the Court of Appeals may prove  a stepping stone. She and the other public defenders and civil rights lawyers in this group are exactly the kind of judges we need to rebalance our courts. 

“Ideally all the nominees in this first wave would come from these kinds of underrepresented professional backgrounds. But old habits die hard for some senators who are used to recommending corporate lawyers and prosecutors for federal judgeships. We know Biden’s stated preference for civil rights lawyers and labor lawyers for district courts is only as good as the buy-in it generates among home-state senators. This means progressives need to double down on pressuring these senators, and that is what we intend to do in the months ahead.”

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