Throughout President Donald Trump’s four years in office, the Left constantly freaked out about his hostile takeover of the federal judiciary.
“Trump’s impact on the federal judiciary has been profound,” Georgetown Law School professor Paul Butler told PBS. “If there’s a contest about the future of law, of judicial interpretations, Republicans have won.”
“The judiciary is where policy is made in the United States,” Vox’s Ian Millhiser wrote. “And that policy is likely to be made by Republican judges for the foreseeable future.”
But after just two years, it appears that President Joe Biden is adding far-left judges to the judiciary faster than Trump ever did. According to the Pew Research Center, he has appointed more federal judges than any president since President John F. Kennedy at this point in his tenure.
“As of Aug. 8, the first day of the U.S. Senate’s August break, Biden has successfully appointed 75 judges to the three main tiers of the federal judicial system,” Pew reports. “That’s far more than the number appointed by Donald Trump (51) and Barack Obama (42) at the same stage in their presidencies.”
Expect this to be the new normal, at least when a single party controls both the Senate and the White House. Ever since former-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) nuked the filibuster for nominations in 2013, the Senate has basically two speeds on judicial nominations: standstill when the opposing party has the White House and light speed when the same party has the White House.
If Trump had not gifted two Senate seats to the Democrats in 2020, Democrats would never have gained control of the Senate, and Biden might have set the record for fewest judicial confirmations in history. But Trump decided to make the Georgia runoffs all about him, Republicans lost, and Biden got to undo much of what Trump accomplished.
Republicans have a chance to shut off Biden’s judicial spigot this November. That is why Senate Democrats will be shifting their focus to judicial nominations when they get back from recess this month.
Millhiser is wrong when he says the judiciary is where policy is made in the United States. Under the Constitution, it should be made in Congress. But thanks to the Supreme Court’s abandonment of the delegation doctrine, policy is now made by unelected bureaucrats in executive branch agencies.
A Republican who really wanted to change how policy is made in this country would devote his presidency to giving legislative power back to Congress. Then courts wouldn’t have to be brought in to make sure the bureaucrats, who currently do make the laws, followed the proper procedures when they did so.
