Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has recommended two prominent voting rights attorneys for President Biden to appoint to the federal bench.
Schumer recommended Myrna Perez, director of voting rights and election programs at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, and Dale Ho, head of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Voting Rights Project, for federal judicial seats on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Southern District of New York, respectively, his office announced on Monday.
“These are two of the foremost voting rights and election experts in the country and with a national focus on voting rights right now, their perspective will be invaluable in ensuring the federal judiciary fulfills its obligation to ensure equal justice for all,” a spokesperson for Schumer said in an email.
If confirmed to the 2nd Circuit, Perez would be the only Latina on the court and the first since Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, according to The Associated Press.
Democrats are eager to counter the plethora of judicial appointments made under former President Trump. A third of the Supreme Court and more than a quarter of the federal judiciary is now made up of Trump nominees, the AP notes.
The narrowly Democratic-majority Senate is set to begin voting on its first round of Biden judicial nominees this week. Biden’s diverse group of 11 nominees include previous Obama-era nominee Julien Neals, U.S. District Judge for D.C. Ketanji Brown Jackson and U.S. District Judge for Maryland Deborah Boardman.
Schumer has prepared an initial procedural vote on Monday for Neals’s nomination with the confirmation coming as soon as Tuesday.