Last week the Senate confirmed President Biden’s 100th Article III judge. I recently offered some context here about Biden’s record-setting pace with respect to judicial confirmations. I argued that the comparison between Trump and Biden is apples-to-oranges, in large part because the Senate’s rule requiring 30 hours of post-cloture debate for district court nominations was in effect until April 2019, greatly slowing the rate at which Trump’s nominees could be processed during the first two years of his presidency.
Today I am going to attempt to show the difference in quality between Trump and Biden’s judges, looking at certain legal credentials. Every judicial nominee submits a completed SJQ to the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the judicial nomination process. JCN has catalogued and compared various legal credentials from the Senate Judiciary Questionnaires (“SJQs”) of all of the Trump judges and the first 100 Biden judges confirmed, including:
- Whether the judge clerked for a Supreme Court justice
- Whether the judge clerked for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge
- Whether the judge received certain honors from his or her law school (here we looked at summa cum laude, magna cum laude, and Order of the Coif commendations)
The difference between the Trump and Biden judges on this front is striking.
- 41% of Trump’s circuit court judges did a Supreme Court clerkship, compared to only 19% of Biden’s circuit court judges. Looking at all of Trump’s judges, 13% clerked at the Supreme Court, versus 3% of all of Biden’s judges.
- 81% of Trump’s circuit court judges did a clerkship with a circuit court judge compared to 53% of Biden’s circuit court judges. Looking at all of Trump’s judges, 42% clerked for a circuit court judge, versus only 30% of all of Biden’s judges.
- 59% of Trump’s circuit judges graduated summa cum laude, magna cum laude or Order of the Coif at their respective law schools, compared to just 13% of Biden’s circuit judges. Looking at all of Trump’s judges, 40% graduated with such honors, versus 13% of Biden’s judges.
Professor Derek Muller recently attempted to quantify the influence of Biden’s circuit court judges. He compared the number of majority opinions written by Biden’s first circuit court judges to Trump’s, over a similar time period. Muller found that the Biden appointees averaged about 14 majority opinions per judge, compared to about 34 majority opinions per judge for the Trump appointees.
In terms of both credentials and influence, it appears that Biden’s judges are not measuring up.
