Biden Announces Names of Judicial Nominees in 23rd Round

President Joe Biden speaks before signing an executive order on access to abortion in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on July 8, 2022. (Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images)

President Joe Biden has announced four new federal judicial nominees, three nominees for local courts in the District of Columbia, and the intent to put forward a fifth federal judicial nominee.

“This is President Biden’s twenty-third round of nominees for federal judicial positions and his tenth slate of nominations in 2022, bringing the number of announced federal judicial nominees to 123,” a July 14 White House statement reads.

The nominees to the United States District Courts are:

• Matthew L. Garcia for the District of New Mexico. He has served as Chief of Staff in the Office of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham between 2020 and 2022.
• Justice Adrienne C. Nelson for the District of Oregon. Since 2018, she has served as an Associate Justice on the Oregon Supreme Court.
• Judge Andrew G. Schopler for the Southern District of California. He has been serving as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California since 2016.
• Judge James Edward Simmons Jr. for the Southern District of California. He is presently the Supervising Judge of the North County Branch of the San Diego Superior Court.

Biden announced Lindsay C. Jenkins with an “intent to nominate” for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Between 2006 and 2021, she worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Vijay Shanker, Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice, was nominated for the D.C. Court of Appeals.

For the D.C. Superior Court, the nominees were Laura Crane and Veronica Sanchez. Crane has served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia since 2014. Sanchez has been in a similar post since 2009.

Filling Diversity Quotas, Blocking Pro-Abortion Candidate

According to the White House statement, the nominations reflect the fulfillment of Biden’s promise to make sure that “the nation’s courts reflect the diversity” of America.

As an example, it pointed to the nomination of Justice Adrienne C. Nelson, who—if confirmed—will be the first black woman to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

On July 13, Biden nominated Jorge Rodriguez, an attorney in the New York attorney general’s office, to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. If confirmed, Rodriguez will be the first Hispanic appointed to that post.

Biden also nominated federal prosecutor Jamar Walker, an LGBTQ individual, to a judgeship in Virginia’s Eastern District.

The president has yet to officially nominate Republican Chad Meredith, a former Kentucky solicitor general, to a judgeship. The White House reportedly planned to nominate Meredith, who has in the past defended abortion restrictions, on June 24.

But after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that day, there have been no updates as to whether the White House intends to move ahead with the nomination.

Biden’s flurry of nominations comes amid Democrats’ calls to the White House to speed up filling the 120 judicial vacancies before the midterm elections in November.