The race is on for Senate Democrats to confirm President Joe Biden’s final nominees for federal judge positions, before the party loses the chamber majority.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that he would focus on confirming judges, according to HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery. “We will work to get as many confirmed as possible,” he said.
There are currently 47 judicial vacancies, including 45 in U.S. district courts and two in appeals courts. Biden has 31 nominees still in the pipeline to be confirmed, and only 22 days left in session before Republicans are set to take over on January 3.
The Senate voted 51–44 on Tuesday to confirm April M. Perry as a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois.
It’s essential that Senate Democrats approve as many Biden nominees as possible before Donald Trump enters office next year. The president-elect made a whopping 234 judicial appointments during his first term, some of whom proved to be fierce Trump loyalists willing to upend his legal battles—such as Judge Aileen Cannon, who used an insane technicality to toss out charges that Trump mishandled classified documents.
Other Trump appointees, such as Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, simply sow nationwide chaos by using the legal landscape to push conservative, sometimes Christian nationalist, agenda items like restricting abortion access.