Obama aims to diversify judiciary
WASHINGTON — In Florida, President Barack Obama has nominated the first openly gay black man to sit on a federal district court. In New York, he has nominated the first AsianAmerican lesbian. And his pick for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit? The first South Asian.
Re-elected with strong support from women, ethnic minorities and gays, Obama is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress.
Obama has named three dozen judicial candidates since January and is expected to nominate scores more over the next few months, aides said. The push marks a significant departure from the sluggish pace of appointments throughout much of his first term, when both Republicans and some Democrats complained that Obama had not tried hard enough to fill vacancies on federal courts.
The new wave of nominations is part of an effort by Obama to cement a legacy that long outlives his presidency and makes the court system more closely resemble the changing society it governs, administration officials said.
“Diversity in and of itself is a thing that is strengthening the judicial system,” White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said. “It enhances the bench and the performance of the bench and the quality of the discussion . . . to have different perspectives, different life experiences, different professional experiences, coming from a different station in life, if you will.”
But Obama’s biggest obstacle is the Senate, where Republicans have frequently blocked judicial confirmation votes for months or, in some cases, years. Obama has 35 nominees currently awaiting votes by the Senate - including several holdovers from 2012 who have been renominated this year - and there are more than 50 additional vacancies awaiting nominees, according to the Federal Judicial Center.
Obama has already broken more barriers with his judicial appointments than any other president, aides said. At the circuit court level, four states now have their first female justices, five have their first black justices and two have their first Hispanics. Sonia Sotomayor also became the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.
Seventeen of the 35 pending judicial nominees are women, 15 are ethnic minorities and five are openly gay, according to White House statistics. Six are straight white men.