Republican Complains About Lack of Straight, White, Male Judges
By: Katherine Fung (Newsweek)
PoliticsJoe BidenJudgeJudiciaryCourts
A Republican congressman criticized President Joe Biden for not appointing more straight, white men to the judicial courts on the House floor, saying it was "almost impossible" for those individuals to become judges under the Biden administration.
"In his first two years, President Biden had appointed 97 federal judges. Of the 97 federal judges, I was expecting maybe 25 or 30 were white guys because I know President Biden wasn't heavy on appointing more white guys," Representative Glenn Grothman said on Thursday.
"Five of the 97 judges were white guys. Of those, two were gay," the Wisconsin Republican continued. "So, almost impossible for white guys, not gay, to get appointed here."
Newsweek reached out to Grothman via email for comment.
Newsweek was unable to verify which judges Grothman was referencing. According to judicial watchdog Balls and Strikes, 129 of Biden's judicial nominations have been confirmed by the Senate.
Biden has appointed more judges to the federal courts than both former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama. He has not only outpaced his predecessors for the number of judges but has also surpassed them when it comes to the number of women and people of color he has nominated since taking office.
Balls and Strikes' data shows that 65.2 percent of the appointees Biden has named to the federal judiciary are women and that 66.5 percent are people of color. Comparatively, 24 percent and 42 percent, respectively, of Trump and Obama appointees were women and 16 percent and 36 percent were people of color.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., attends a news conference on a proposed constitutional amendment "to require that the Supreme Court of the United States be composed of nine justices, in the Capitol Visitor Center on Wednesday, January 11, 2023. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty
Even as a presidential candidate, Biden vowed to diversify the federal bench.
During his 2020 campaign, the Democrat pledged to "appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges who look like America"—a promise that was at the forefront of his SCOTUS pick, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Upon her confirmation in April 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman and first former federal public defender on the bench.
Read more
- Biden's Confirmed Federal Judges are 80 Percent Women, 53 Percent POC
- Affirmative action critics look to kill these Biden policies
- Biden Pushing Federal Judge Nominees Through Faster Than Trump, Obama
However, Biden's efforts to appoint more women and people of color to the federal judiciary are still up against the current makeup, which leans heavily toward white men.
The most recent report from the American Bar Association (ABA) found that only four percent of federal judges were Black women, while 78 percent are white men. The figures accounted for the 68 judges Biden had appointed as of July 1, 2022, and do not include the 29 he has appointed since. Of those 29, two are white men.
The ABA noted that while there are more white male attorneys, one in five lawyers is a person of color and more than a third are women. The association also pointed out that even as the judiciary becomes more diverse, not all federal courts look the same.
"For example, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has 18 judges, but only one is female," the report states. "Tennessee has 23 federal trial judges, but only three are female. Sixteen states have no federal trial judges of color. There are 104 federal trial judges in those states."
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
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Ah, the poor little whiner.
boo hoo hoo, biden isn't treating white supremacists as equals...
say, isn't that a yellow and blue proud boys tie he's wearing? yellow for cowardice and blue for incel blue balls...
my thoughts exactly - another white male complaining that there aren't so many of him around
Incredible
when you see some of the comments from some on the right on NT it really isn't that unusual.
Grothman always looks like he has to go chase some kids off his lawn. He's a snowflake for sure.
In more ways than one...LOL
They are petrified that they are losing their hold on things.
Ahhh, yes. The fall of the straight white patriarchy is a hard landing for some. So hard some are willing to break ethics (if they ever had any), rules and laws to keep their power. They grew up with the notion that if they played the game their time would come, but now they have to share with people who they perceive as beneath them.
Bingo.
OMG, a person of color as a judge, call out the NG put a stop to this.../s
and 2 are gay! GASP!
Meh... To quote an ex President, elections have consequences. One of the perks for winning the White House is that you get to choose who you nominate for judgeships. The next person will also get to appoint who they want to see in those open positions. That this guy wants to focus on something so trivial just tends to show he doesn't have his head on straight. While I don't care for some of the nominations that Biden has made (I would prefer judges to really know the law and the Constitution for example) it's all his choice.
If you don't like the process either work to change the process or run better candidates for that office so that your person gets to nominate. easy peasy..
I know, right? Like...what does it matter? The only thing that matters is the appointee know the Constitution
Since Grothman isn't questioning their qualifications it's all about color, gender, and sexual preference for him.
Hard cheese. I had something better to say, but I forgot what it was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
President Trump appointed 234 judges. Of those about 53 were women so... about 21% women representing over 50% of our citizens. The rest, with very few exceptions, were straight white christian men.
appt based solely on gender or race is doomed to failure.
Nope, but assertions that non-whites, females or LGBTQ persons who hold powerful positions could only be there because they were given unfair preferences over straight whit men is Pure-D Racist Sexist Homophobic Bullshit!
maybe they were the only candidates that didn't have tailor made sheets hanging in their closets...
when race and gender are the sole criteria, it is doomed to failure, and you just don't get to blame white males, sorry.
There you go, again...
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Educating the unenlightened.
You're welcome!
Unqualified And Ideological: A Guide To Trump's Worst Judges | HuffPost Latest News
I have zero hope that the morons in the Biden administration will ever figure out that race or sexual orientation has nothing to do with a persons qualifications to do a job.
tell that to wussolini in florida...
So... If, as you say, race or sexual orientation has nothing to do with a persons (sic) qualifications to do a job, why is it even an issue?
Assuming that the Biden appointees are not qualified for judgeships is a wild-ass guess by commentators on this thread. Looking at the non-qualified label by the ABA is a much better gauge of a persons qualifications.
The article is about Grothman and his whining about not enough straight white men being appointed. Since they have in the past been overly represented indicates that the whiny white guy is just that and afraid that perhaps there will be a representative judiciary in the US.
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are you referring to the 3 conservative xtians that stated in their confirmation hearings that roe v wade was the law of the land?
was Roe vs. Wade not considered the law or something??
do you have a point?
The article is about all the judicial appointments that Grothman is whining about. Do you have anything to say about the actual article or not?
actually I addressed your post which talked about ABA ratings.
no, it's usually about the person making the comment...
Go ahead and invent how this applies to you.
I'll wait.
thanks for proving my point...
thanks for believing you made one.
The real problem is the lack of almost anyone with a brain in the Republican Party.
I find it really telling that he would complain about this when the judiciary is majority white males.
... white xtian males.
oh no!
whatever shall we do with folks who have religion?
remove their charity tax credit for church contributions, for starters...
“…for starters...”
And then let them be…up until that most unconstitutional of moments when they attempt to legislate their dogmatic doctrine onto any public institution.
I'm sure the self proclaimed defenders of the constitution won't have a problem with that... /s
a treasury shortfall that's shared by all taxpayers. sounds like religious socialism to me. most religions are a business, tax them like a business if they can't operate like a nonprofit. crack their books and set the hooks.
ah, but you can't.
I realize that may disappoint people who don't like those with religion.
false. democrats favor providing help to those with mental handicaps, like xtian nationalism.
Remove their tax-exempt status.
So now your claim is that you can tax churches?
Point it out in the tax code or you are making it all up!
Well, of course they do!
Got to take of their own!
Because the big problem we have in the judiciary is a lack of representation for straight white males?
That is a huge problem for this Republican. It seems that just having the majority isn't enough, damn people of color and females want to have representation is un-American to him it seems.
that dumb ass is stuck in the late 19th century...
I think my issue with this is the intimation of this jackass that women, homosexuals & POC judges cannot be unbiased & that white men will never get a fair shake from them BUT straight white male judges will be fair to all. ARGH!!!!!!!!!
The history of the US tells you that is a crock of shit but some, such as this goofball Grothman probably belives it 100%.
all racists think that everybody else are racists too.
and you can tell by their comments!
Have a great weekend.
u2
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ugh, I have been sounding the alarm about these unamerican rwnj thumper fucks for almost 50 years...
all to no avail, obviously.
that happens when you start with a false premise.
find somebody else to stalk. you're boring.
Give me a sign that someone is forcing you to read my posts!
thumper flypaper...
The article has been up for three days and time to close it down.
Thanks for commenting.