Biden continues push to diversify judiciary with four new nominees
President Joe Biden waves after exiting Marine One on the South Law of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2023. REUTERS/Bonnie Cash Acquire Licensing Rights
Sept 6 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced four new nominees to serve as federal judges across four states.
The latest district court nominees include a Black federal prosecutor nominated to be a judge in New Jersey and a Muslim American up for a seat on Oregon's federal bench, adding to the record number of women and people of color Biden has nominated.
Combined with two new district court nominees in California and Hawaii, the latest nominations bring to 188 the number of federal judicial nominees that Biden has announced since taking office in January 2021. The Senate has confirmed 140 of them.
Of those nominees, 62% are people of color and 62% are women, according to the White House, keeping with Biden's campaign pledge to diversify the federal bench. His nominees have been 31% Black, 18% Asian American and 18% Hispanic.
In New Jersey, Biden nominated Jamel Semper, the deputy chief of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office's Criminal Division. He joined that office in 2018 after working as a local prosecutor in Essex County and Union County.
Semper had been touted in 2021 as a potential candidate to lead that office, with influential Black ministers supporting him. Biden instead in October 2021 nominated Philip Sellinger to become the new U.S. attorney.
In Oregon, Biden moved to elevate U.S. Magistrate Judge Mustafa Kasubhai to a position as a life-tenured district court judge.
Kasubhai is a Muslim American and son of Indian immigrants who earlier in his career had been a labor lawyer, member of the Oregon Workers’ Compensation Board and a state court judge.
In Hawaii, Biden nominated Shanlyn Park, a state court judge who had previously been a federal public defender and worked at the law firms McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon and Gallagher Kane Amai & Reyes.
In California's Eastern District, Biden nominated Kirk Sherriff, the chief of the Fresno office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California, who before attending law school and working as an associate at White & Case was a public high school teacher in Mississippi.
Read more:
Biden faces tougher road on judicial appointments after progressive picks
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
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