Obama's Judicial Nominees: Liberals Are Upset With Them, Too

President Obama has answered Democrats’ calls for a federal judiciary that looks more like America. As of April he had named more black, Hispanic, Asian, and openly gay judges, as well as more women, than any of his predecessors. And after a slow start in making judicial nominations and years of Republican obstruction, he surpassed the number of federal judges George W. Bush had appointed at the same point in his presidency—thanks in part to a rule Senate Democrats pushed through last year that ended use of the filibuster to block nominees. Obama has filled 238 federal court seats, and Democratic appointees now make up the majority of active-status jurists on 9 of the 13 U.S. appeals courts, vs. one when he took office.

Yet some Democratic activists, while praising the president’s diversity efforts, have a new complaint: His picks for the federal bench aren’t liberal enough. These critics are encouraging the president to appoint nominees who will tilt the ideological balance of the federal bench to the left—offsetting the hundreds of young, conservative judges Bush picked over eight years.