Biden reportedly expected to nominate judges with legal backgrounds 'historically underrepresented on the federal bench'

(Image credit: Amr Alfiky/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

last updated 30 January 2021

For decades, NBC News notes, the Republican Party has been the political faction emphasizing the courts in the United States, but now Democrats appear to be playing catch-up as they look to fill several federal vacancies before the mid-terms in 2022 when they could lose their slim Senate majority.

If they do fill the seats, White House Counsel Dana Remus recently wrote in a letter to senators that was obtained by NBC, it will likely be with "individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those whose who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life" rather than, say, prosecutors or "big corporate lawyers."

Chris Kang, a co-founder of the progressive group Demand Justice and former deputy counsel in the Obama administration, similarly told NBC he expects President Biden's first set of judiciary nominees are "going to look very different than the kind of judges that Democratic presidents have put forward in the past" and will likely have "radically" different backgrounds, which "will make a huge difference in our courts." Read more at NBC News.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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