President Joe Biden announced three new nominees for judicial positions on Thursday. The diverse trio – a woman, a Latino, and a labor lawyer – represent the second wave of Biden’s selections for the bench. He nominated 11 jurists less than a month ago.
It’s clear that Biden is pushing forward members of communities that have long been shut out of the nation’s top courts. His previous slate of judges featured a Muslim, an Asian-American woman, and a Black woman who, if confirmed, will all be the first Americans with their demographics to hold the seat for which they are nominated. Other nominees, while not history making, come from communities of color.
NBC News provides more info on the three nominees announced Thursday:
The nominees include David Estudillo, now presiding judge of Grant County Superior Court in Ephrata, Washington, for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Estudillo previously practiced immigration law and general civil litigation at his own firm.
Biden’s other two picks are Tana Lin, also for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, and Christine O’Hearn, for the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Lin, who would be the first Asian American judge for that district, has been working at law firm Keller Rohrback since 2004 where she has focused on representing employees and shareholders in consumer and antitrust litigation. O’Hearn has been a partner at law firm Brown and Connery since 1993 where she practices labor and employment law.
Biden and a threadbare Democratic majority in the Senate are trying to shift the court leftward after the Trump administration appointed over 200 judges to the federal bench – an eye-popping total for a one-term president.
President Donald Trump appointed mostly white men to fill the jobs, and now more than one-quarter of the federal judiciary is made up of his appointees. Trump, a Republican, also nominated three members of the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, a leading contender for the next Supreme Court vacancy, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. She was recently nominated to replace Merrick Garland on the powerful D.C.-based appellate court.
