Biden nominates two more Black women for lifetime judgeships 

WASHINGTON (CN) — Continuing to make history for the diversity of his judicial nominations, President Joe Biden named two Black women as part of a slate of five new potential judges in southern Republican-led states Wednesday. 

The choices "continue to fulfill the President’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country—both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” the White House said of the nominees Wednesday.

During Biden’s presidency, the U.S. Senate has voted 32 Black women into lifetime judgeships. Wednesday’s nominees include Magistrate Judge Jacquelyn Austin, put forth for a slot in the District of South Carolina, and Magistrate Judge Julie Sneed, nominated for a spot in Florida’s Middle District.

Austin would bring more than a decade of experience as a magistrate judge for the District of South Carolina to the post, having served in the position since 2011. Before that, she'd served as a partner at international law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice since 2006, where she drafted and prosecuted United States and European patent applications and worked with issues like real estate disputes, racial discrimination and fair housing.

Sneed has served as a magistrate judge for the Middle District of Florida since 2015. She previously worked for more than a decade as a partner and associate at international law firms Akerman and Fowler White Boggs Banker.

If Austin and Sneed are confirmed alongside two other Black women awaiting judicial confirmation by the Senate, it will mean the Biden administration will have matched the total number of Black women confirmed under the past three administrations of former Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Another diverse nominee listed in Biden’s 41st judicial spurt is Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Becerra, whose name was put forth for a federal judgeship at the Southern District of Florida. 

Becerra is the daughter of first-generation Cuban immigrants who came to the United States after the Cuban Revolution. She has served as a magistrate judge at the Southern District of Florida since 2019.

Prior to that, she was a shareholder at the multinational law and lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig from 2004 to 2018. She served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, first as an assistant U.S. attorney and later special counsel between 1999 and 2004. 

Rounding out the slate of nominees Wednesday were Melissa Damian and David Leibowitz, both nominated for seats in the Southern District of Florida. 

Damian has been a magistrate judge for the Southern District of Florida for the last year and previously worked in private legal practice as a lawyer at Damian & Valori from 2013 to 2021. 

Leibowitz is a former federal prosecutor who has served as corporate counsel for Braman Management Association in Miami, Florida, for the last decade. He is also the nephew of billionaire Norman Braman, a longtime benefactor of Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

All of Wednesday’s nominees are based in states with two Republican senators. Florida’s senators are Rubio and Rick Scott, and South Carolina’s are Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott. The four senators, who have the power to veto any nominees Biden makes in their states that they do not support, are expected to support Biden's nominees.

Thus far, most of Biden's 148 confirmed nominees have come from states with two Democratic senators. The White House said Wednesday that this round of nominations brings the total number of announced federal judicial nominees by Biden to 198.

There are currently still 61 judicial vacancies without nominees across the country — two-thirds of them in states held by Republican senators.

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