White House chief of staff Ron Klain has tweeted out that “with today’s confirmation of Holly Thomas to the Court of Appeals, @POTUS has now named more appellate court judges his first year in office than any President.” Klain attaches to his tweet a chart that shows that President Biden now has 13 appellate judges confirmed, exceeding Donald Trump’s 12 in his first year.
As I have observed several times, the White House has delivered what it promised the Left on judicial nominations. In addition to the high priority that the White House has placed on judicial nominations, the record that Klain touts is also made possible by recent process changes in the confirmation process (demoted home-state blue-slip privilege on appellate nominees, abolition of judicial filibuster) and by the increase in the number of federal appellate judgeships. There are 179 authorized appellate judgeships today, versus 78 at the end of JFK’s first term, so JFK’s record of 11 appellate judges confirmed is much more impressive as a percentage of the overall number of judgeships than Biden’s is: 14% to 7%.
Klain also nearly slipped by me that Holly Thomas’s confirmation appeared after noon today, so that would mean that she was actually confirmed at the beginning of Biden’s second year in office. So Biden and Trump remain tied for number of appellate judges confirmed in the first year of a presidency.
While I’m at it, I’ll note that Klain’s wording is sloppy, as it seems to conflate Senate confirmation with the discrete subsequent act of presidential appointment. From what I can tell (though the data might not be current), Biden has appointed only eleven federal appellate judges as of today. Gabriel Sanchez, confirmed by the Senate a week ago, is apparently finishing up work in his position as an appellate state judge. And I’d guess that Holly Thomas, also a state judge, has some clean-up work to do before she can accept her appointment. So Trump might actually beat Biden 12 to 11 on the score of appellate judges appointed in the first year.