US District Court appointments

Outgoing President Biden has made more appointments to the federal judiciary than incoming President Trump did in Trump's first term. Specifically, Biden has put 184 district court judges where they are today as of this writing. Trump appointed 174.

This is important, because most cases do NOT go up the appellate ladder at all. The Supreme Court (where of course Trump got a pivotal three appointments) ends up taking a very small percentage of the petitions for review it receives. A little under 1 percent, so less than 80 out of about 8000. That is a matter of necessity. This is a big country, there is a heck of a lot of litigation. There is only one Supreme Court.

The upshot, then, is that although he only got to make one SCOTUS pick, Biden's other judicial appointments are an important legacy. There are 673 active federal court judges across the country. So (my quick arithmetic at work) Biden has appointed somewhat more than one quarter of them. They may throw a lot of sand into the gears of a revived Trump march toward executive dictatorship.

They need to do so for the next two years or so and we may still have a Republic to save by the autumn after next.

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