By any objective measure, President Joe Biden has been incredibly successful with his judicial nominations. He appointed a record number of judges in his first year in office, and 88 percent of his nominees have been confirmed by the Senate—no small feat given the Democrats’ slim majority in that body (thank you, Vice President Kamala Harris). And Biden’s nominees have been incredibly diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, and experience.

Unfortunately, Biden cannot be judged by an objective measure. His appointments must be viewed in the context of his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, and Trump’s makeover of the federal judiciary in the Federalist Society’s image.

By that measure, Biden is not doing all he needs to do. According to the Brookings Institute, Trump appointed a record-setting 177 district court judges, 53 circuit court judges, and three Supreme Court judges in his four years. Biden has appointed only 126 district court judges, 39 circuit court judges, and one Supreme Court justice in his first three years. Biden still has time to make up the gap, but he is already behind Trump’s three-year output, and the fourth year is when Trump got serious about remaking the courts. It’s important to remember that in 2020, Trump’s last year in office, he and Mitch McConnell turned the Senate into a judicial-confirmation machine.

Thus far, the same cannot be said of Biden or Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin. As of this writing, there are 59 open seats throughout the federal judiciary. Biden has made nominations for only 22 of those seats; critics, meanwhile, say that confirmations tapered during the last year. That tapering, per a recent New York Times article, “likely put the Trump administration threshold out of reach for Mr. Biden and Democrats in an election year when the Senate will be gone from the Capitol for long stretches.”

In a message to The Nation, Durbin’s office defended his record, saying that his committee has scheduled votes and hearings on most of the pending nominations—and he told The Times that he aims to confirm at least 29 more judges before the year. Again, objectively, this is all fine. The problem is that it still lags behind the pace set by Trump.

Establishment Democrats and Durbin defenders blame Republicans for the recent slow-down. A couple of months ago, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee threw an epic hissy fit when Democrats subpoenaed Federalist Society svengali Leonard Leo and conservative judicial sugar daddy Harlan Crow to appear before the committee in an ethics probe. Since then, Republicans have been using every possible procedural trick to slow the confirmation process.

But the larger problem is Durbin’s insistence on honoring what is known as the “blue slip” process for judicial nominations. The blue slip allows senators to weigh in on a president’s judicial nominee from their state, and to do so before the nomination is made to the wider body. Traditionally, if a senator approves of the nominee, they will return a “blue slip” and the confirmation process can go forward; if the senator disapproves, the president finds a more agreeable nominee. It’s one of the reasons “red states” end up with conservative federal courts, while “blue states” end up with liberal ones.

Like the filibuster, the blue slip is not a constitutional rule or a federal statute; it’s just another anachronistic, antidemocratic tradition born in the Jim Crow South and maintained by the broken Senate. And, like the filibuster, former Senate majority leader McConnell simply ignored it in the case of circuit court nominations when it stood between Republicans and judicial power. McConnell and Trump didn’t let the lack of blue slips stop them from appointing ultraconservative judges to the Second Circuit (which covers New York) or the Ninth Circuit (which covers California and most of the West).

Durbin continues to use blue slips for district court nominations. He claims to merely be continuing the precedent set by Republicans, when they began ignoring blue slips for the circuit courts but continued to use them for district courts. But the reality is that Republicans are using the power of the blue slips to prevent liberal judges from being appointed in red states. 

Of the current vacancies in the judiciary, 33 are in states with at least one Republican senator. Only 19 percent of Biden’s judges thus far have been sent to states with one Republican senator. By contrast, 51 percent of Trump’s nominees went to a state with at least one Democratic senator.

Durbin told The New York Times that he thinks that honoring blue slips is a way to ensure more moderate Republican nominees, should Republicans retake the Senate and the White House. Critics, including me, believe that failing to use the power to shape the judiciary now, while he has it, is… failure.

It’s like Biden and Durbin are trying to chase down the people who have kidnapped the federal judiciary, but they won’t drive over 55 mph because they’re worried about violating the speed limit. There’s no mystery as to why they’re falling behind. They’re adhering to rules the other side won’t follow. It’s, frankly, pathetic.

Biden and Durbin won’t force judges into Republican-controlled enclaves, and they can’t run up the score in Democratic states because—and I can’t believe I have to type this—old-ass liberal judges won’t retire and let Biden appoint their lifetime replacement while he still can. Of the 17 circuit court judges appointed by Barack Obama or Bill Clinton who became eligible in the last year for “senior status” (a semi-retirement that allows judges to vacate their seat but still draw their full salary and work on cases), only three relinquished their power and allowed Biden to replace them. Three, y’all. Only three of these people were able to look at the 2024 Senate electoral map, and an actuarial table, and piece together the information wisely. Excuse me while I say “Ruth Bader Ginsburg” in my bathroom mirror three times and wait for the sweet release of death.