Biden has bolstered 9th Circuit’s liberal flank, but has yet to match Trump’s impact
LOS ANGELES — President Joe Biden is leaving a distinct mark on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, adding relatively young jurists of color who have bolstered the influential court’s liberal flank.
So far, the president has appointed three Asian women, a Black woman and two Latino judges, all of whom have extensive experience in legal fields important to progressives, including civil, labor and voting rights law. And he is poised to fill two additional seats on the circuit. The eight appointments during Biden’s first term would be one more than President Barack Obama made to the court during his two terms in office.
“It’s clear that Biden is going to have a lasting influence on the 9th Circuit by virtue of who he has picked. He certainly has enhanced the diversity,” said University of California, Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
Despite the president’s leftward push, Chemerinsky cautioned against overstating Biden’s impact, saying he is trying to regain ground lost in an aggressive campaign by former President Donald Trump to stack the nation’s federal benches with conservative jurists.
“He has not shifted the ideological composition” of the traditionally liberal,
