Biden Has Chance To Push DC Circuit Further Left

By Christopher Cole (January 3, 2022, 12:03 PM EST) — D.C. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel reflected in a letter this year announcing his plans to enter semi-retirement how “meaningful” it was that President Joe Biden, the same man who shepherded his Senate confirmation decades ago, would be naming his replacement. But the letter also had a deeper, unspoken meaning: Biden now had his second shot to make a lasting imprint on one of the most powerful federal courts.

The newly minted president had just plucked Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland from the court’s ranks to fill the attorney general’s job, giving Biden his first chance to add a new voice to a court with wide-spanning…