(CN) — President Joe Biden nominated 10 candidates to federal benches Thursday, furthering his push for more diversity in the judiciary.
“All of the nominees are extraordinarily qualified, experienced and devoted to the rule of law and our Constitution,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement.
The eighth round of judicial nominees brings Biden’s total number of federal and appellate picks to 53, 32 of whom are women, since he first took office.
“These choices also 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 spokesperson added.
Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, is one of the nominees to earn a spot on Thursday. He previously aided in litigation against former President Donald Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the U.S. Census count.
If confirmed, Ho would be the only active Asian American judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Several of Thursday’s nominees are set to make history.
They include Washington State Court of Appeals judge John Chun, who would be the first Asian American man to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, and San Diego Superior Court Judge Jinsook Ohta.
Chun, the son of South Korean immigrants, became the first in his family to earn a law degree after graduating from Cornell Law School. Ohta, a Yale and New York State University School of Law alumnus, would be the first Asian American female judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
David A. Ruiz, a magistrate judge for the Northern District of Ohio, would be the first Hispanic district court judge in the state. He served as assistant U.S. attorney for the same district from between 2010 and 2016.
Also included on the slate are three former public defenders now headed to federal courts: Charles Fleming for the Northern District of Ohio, Linda Lopez for the Southern District of California and Victoria Calvert for the Northern District of Georgia.
They are added to the list of 14 former public defenders who have been nominated by the Democrat president.
Sarah Geraghty, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, is the 13th civil rights attorney to gain a Biden nomination after her nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Thursday.
The District of Columbia’s local court of appeals and superior court also gained nominees on Thursday.
D.C. Solicitor General Loren AliKhan was nominated to join the court of appeals.
Biden picked D.C. magistrate judges Adrienne Jennings Noti and Ebony Scott to the district’s superior court alongside D.W. Tunnage, a criminal trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
In a rush to counter former President Donald Trump’s 234 federal judicial nominees during his term, Senate Democrats have already approved 14 of Biden’s picks.
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