Progressives Urge Senate Dems To Confirm All Of Biden's Court Picks In Lame Duck

WASHINGTON — Welp. Democrats got clobbered on Election Day.

Next year, Donald Trump will be in the White House, Republicans will control the Senate and it’s looking like Republicans will control the House, too.

That leaves Democrats with a very tight window — the end-of-year lame duck session — to squeeze out every last drop of their power while Joe Biden is still in the White House and their party still, if barely, controls the Senate. The most obvious thing they can do is focus on confirming more of Biden’s judges, as these are lifetime posts and these people will be making decisions that affect millions for decades after Trump or Biden is around.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is already agitating for her party to get moving on this when the Senate comes back into session next week.

“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators — none of whom can be removed by the next President,” Warren wrote in a Thursday opinion piece.

Progressive judicial advocacy groups, similarly, are pressing Schumer to step on the gas and confirm as many of Biden’s judges as possible. If that means using the lame duck to keep the Senate in session on Fridays, when it is usually out, or on the weekends, so be it.

“Given the outcome of the election, the reality is that we now have a rapidly closing window to confirm well-qualified, fair-minded judges who will protect our rights and serve as one of the last guardrails in upholding our nation’s laws and the Constitution,” Maggie Jo Buchanan, managing director of Demand Justice, said in a Thursday statement.

“As Vice President Harris said yesterday, ‘This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is the time to roll up our sleeves,’” she said. “Even one judge can make a difference.”

Another group, People For the American Way, launched a new platform called Resist Project 2025 for mobilizing activists against Trump’s efforts to undermine democracy. Its first priority is to organize around resisting the Trump administration’s efforts to revamp the courts.

“Confirm all Biden judicial nominees now,” reads the first bullet point in the group’s statement announcing the new initiative.

Seventeen of Biden’s pending judicial nominees are currently waiting for a vote on the Senate floor and eight are waiting to be reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Three more are waiting for a committee hearing.

Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate majority whip, will decide how Democrats proceed. HuffPost reached out to both to get a sense of how aggressive they’ll be with moving Biden’s final batch of judges.

“We have two teed up for next week,” is all that Schumer’s spokesperson, Alex Nguyen, said.

“Sen. Durbin aims to confirm every possible judicial nominee before the end of this Congress — plain and simple,” said Durbin spokesperson Emily Hampsten. “We will continue to hold nominations hearings and markups to move nominees through the Committee. He doesn’t set the floor schedule, but will be pushing, as he has been for the past four years, to prioritize time for judges.”

Their comments may not convey the urgency that groups like Demand Justice are looking for. Part of the reason may be because Democrats face the same challenges in confirming judges that they’ve faced for months: a razor-thin majority and opposition to some of Biden’s controversial nominees from Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Manchin, who is retiring from the Senate this year, declared in March that he wouldn’t vote for any of Biden’s judicial picks if they didn’t have the support of at least one Republican. That created a huge headache for Schumer in a Senate that currently comprises 47 Democrats, 49 Republicans and four Independents who generally align with Democrats.

But the West Virginia senator, who absolutely loves media attention, may have made his declaration just for that purpose. In September, he bucked his own rule and voted to advance one of Biden’s court picks, Kevin Ritz, despite him not having any Republican support.

A Manchin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Friday on whether he’s prepared to vote for any of Biden’s judicial nominees in the lame duck unless at least one GOP senator is backing them.

Some Republicans aren’t willing to cooperate at all. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is already trying to waive off more moderate members in his caucus from voting for any of Biden’s remaining judicial nominees.

“Don’t confirm Biden’s judges,” Lee said Thursday on social media. “It’s Trump’s turn now. No lame-duck favors for Biden.”

There’s only a handful of GOP senators who have consistently voted to confirm at least some of Biden’s court picks. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is one of them. He’s often the only Republican voting to advance some of Biden’s nominees out of the committee.

Graham’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he plans to support judicial nominees in the lame duck that he supported prior to the November election.

Biden is winding down his presidency with 213 confirmed lifetime federal judges under his belt. That is five fewer than Trump had by this point in his first term. In order to match Trump’s final number of confirmed judges, Biden would need to confirm 21 more before the year is up. It’s possible he can do it, but unlikely.