President Biden's Impact on the Ninth Circuit of the Federal Judiciary

 The Ninth is to Liberal's what the Fifth is to Conser- vatives, though much larger and by that fact alone, more diverse.  Where you could argue that among the members of the 5th there isn't a blue or even purple state in the trio.  You could say that about the 9th were reliably red Idaho, Alaska and Montana join purple Nevada and Arizona to create some internal discord.  The Ninth is also the largest of the circuits with 13 Districts serving 9 states and 2 additional Article IV courts serving two territories.  So, it's not surprising that it also has by far the largest Appeals Court with 29 seats!  Compared to the first Circuit's 6 seats, or the average of 12 seats, it's a circuit without comparison.  

I, for one, would love to see it broken into two with the creation of the 12th Circuit as the new home to Hawaii, California, Arizona and Nevada, leaving the smaller 9th to encompass Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, along with the territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.  It's been done before.  In 1981, when it was determined that the 5th Circuit had outgrown it's britches, the Congress broke off Georgia, Alabama and Florida from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and created the Eleventh District for the eastern half, letting the western half remain the 5th.  

As to President Biden's impact on the 9th, I would dare to say that it's the largest of any of the circuits along side of the First and Second Circuits as the top three.  One reason for this was the large number of unfilled seats:  5 out of 7 in Western Washington, 2 out of 6 in Eastern California, 6 out of 28 in Central California, 4 out of 13 in Southern California, and 2 out of 5 in Nevada; 19 in total.  Combine this with a good share of sitting judges seeking Senior Status, and you have a Circuit where President Biden has Nominated and his Senate Judiciary Lead Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois have shepherded in 57 new Judges!  

Of these 41 are women, and 39 are minorities.  One of his most noteworthy accomplishments in the area of diversity comes with the 1 Article III Federal District Court, fully seated, without a single White Male Jurist.  Article IV Territorial Courts, crossed this threshold under President Obama.  We're talking Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands (which were the last), Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.  And this wasn't done with a 2 judge District like Idaho, Eastern Oklahoma, Western Wisconsin, North Dakota or Vermont, or even one of the 11 3-seat Districts.  This was accomplished with the District of Western Washington home to 7-seats, whose judges include 1 Hispanic man, 1 Asian woman, 1 Native American woman, 1 Black man, 1 Asian Man and 2 White woman.  This is the promise of what "a more perfect union" looks like.  One where power is shared.

Before President Biden the Ninth Circuit had 1 District with majority female judges and 2 with gender parity.  Now, (included the Appeals Court) 5 have majority female judges and 6 have parity!  That's flip from 3 out of 14 to 11 out of 14, or if you add in both of the Territorial Courts; 5 out of 16 to 13 out of 16.  Across the entire Circuit, the Ninth is now just 1 female judge away from total gender parity.  President Biden has three opportunities within the District to hit this mark before his first term ends.  Fingers crossed.

When it comes to Diversity, the overall stats are amazing.  In the particulars there are winners and losers wherein the losers don't generally lose that much and the winners make long awaiting gains.  Clearly, the aforementioned District of Western Washington is a winner, but so are Districts like Oregon, Eastern, Northern, Central and Southern California.  The Districts of Central and Southern California represent the greatest winners.