and Schumer has been doing just like Turtle did - funneling judicial confirmations through the Senate. Biden's appointments are literally the most diverse of any President in the 235 year history of this country. This is why there has been extreme "judge shopping" going on by 45.
Some of the media have managed to lapse into amnesia and I have posted this on DU multiple times the past 5 years including here, but -
THE NEW YORKER
Annals of Law
October 27, 2014 Issue
The Obama Brief
The President considers his judicial legacy.
By Jeffrey Toobin
The transformation of the D.C. Circuit has been replicated in federal courts around the country. Obama has had two hundred and eighty judges confirmed, which represents about a third of the federal judiciary. Two of his choices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were nominated to the Supreme Court; fifty-three were named to the circuit courts of appeals, two hundred and twenty-three to the district courts, and two to the Court of International Trade.
When Obama took office, Republican appointees controlled ten of the thirteen circuit courts of appeals; Democratic appointees now constitute a majority in nine circuits. Because federal judges have life tenure, nearly all of Obama’s judges will continue serving well after he leaves office.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/obama-briefWASHINGTON POST
The ‘nuclear option’ transforms Obama’s judicial legacy
By James Downie December 19, 2014
Finally, after years of threatening, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) went on the Senate floor in November 2013 and invoked the “nuclear option,” changing the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees (other than those for the Supreme Court).
A year later, the effect of that change is clear: The 113th Congress confirmed 132 district and circuit court judges, including 89 this year. That’s the highest single-year total in 20 years, and the highest two-year total since 1980. (That’s particularly impressive considering that this Congress was one of the least productive in history.) On Tuesday night alone, the Senate confirmed 12 nominees.
All this means that the once-lagging Obama has now appointed more judges in his first six years (305) than Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. And because Obama has gone out of his way to nominate judges from a wide array of backgrounds, the federal bench is more diverse than ever. All in all, it’s an extraordinary turnaround, one that both Obama and Reid deserve credit for.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/12/19/the-nuclear-option-transforms-obamas-judicial-legacy/And more recently after he left office in 2017 -
Obama will leave office with 329 of his judicial nominees confirmed to lifetime posts on federal courts. That includes two U.S. Supreme Court justices and four judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the two most powerful courts in the nation. Because of Obama,
Democratic appointees now have a 7-4 advantage on the D.C. panel, and those judges will play a major role in deciding cases during the Trump administration related to environmental regulations, health care, national security, consumer protections and challenges to executive orders.
Obama also tilted the partisan makeup of circuit courts.
Nine of the country’s 13 appeals courts now have majority Democratic appointees, compared with just one when he took office in 2009.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barack-obama-judicial-legacy_us_586c1944e4b0de3a08f9eb1f As compiled by Ballotpedia -
https://ballotpedia.org/Current_federal_judges_by_appointing_president_and_circuit
Appointments by President
Following are the number of Article III federal judges serving in the federal judiciary as of November 27, 2022, organized by the president who appointed them.
Appointed by Democrat presidents:
Joe Biden: 81
Barack Obama: 276
Bill Clinton: 48
Jimmy Carter: 0
Appointed by Republican presidents:
Donald Trump: 229
George W. Bush: 131
George H.W. Bush: 11
Ronald Reagan: 12
Gerald Ford: 0
The fact that 45 had that many after 4 years was thanks to Turtle (between his blocking of Obama appointments and then making sure that vacancies that rolled over were eventually filled by 45).
From Ballotpedia (same link) if you spool off to the Appeals Courts, the current "balance" is about 1/2 each however Biden has pending nominations (and a couple vacancies, where more will most likely occur given some judges go back to Raygun and Poppy). But if Biden is able to continue his current rate of nominations and Senate confirmations, he can get it back to pre- 2017 levels, where 45 had to do excess just to take the Appellate from 9 (D)/4 (R) at the beginning of 2017 to 6 (D)/7 (R) currently (where Obama inherited an Appellate majority split of 3 (D)/10 (R) in 2009 and left it with that 9 (D)/4 (R)).
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