President Biden announced a new slate of judicial nominations on Wednesday, bringing his total picks for the federal bench to 32 judges since taking office this year.
Wednesday’s list of appointments includes two nominees for circuit court seats, four for district courts and two nominees for the Court of Federal Claims. He also tapped someone for a D.C. court seat.
Toby Heytens, who has served as the solicitor general for Virginia and was a clerk to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was nominated to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Jennifer Sung, a member of the Oregon Employment Relations Board, was tapped for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
For the U.S. District Court seats, the president named Jane Bickering for the Western District of Michigan, Patricia Tolliver Giles and Michael Nachmanoff for the Eastern District of Virginia and Shalina Kumar for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Armando Bonilla and Carolyn Lerner were tapped for the Court of Federal Claims, and the president nominated Sean Staples, a magistrate judge, to the Superior Court of the District Court of Columbia.
The White House touted the nominations list as fulfilling the president’s promise of making the federal judiciary more diverse, noting that Ms. Sung would be the first Asian American and Pacific Islander judge from Oregon on the 9th Circuit and Mr. Bonilla would be the first Hispanic judge on the Court of Federal Claims.
“President Biden has spent decades committed to strengthening the federal bench, which is why he continues to move at an unparalleled speed with respect to judicial nominations,” the White House said in its press release.
The Senate has confirmed two of the president’s nominees so far to the federal circuit courts and five to the district courts.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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