Biden experiences unprecedented hot streak with ABA judicial nominee ratings

I’ve blogged about the ABA’s judicial nominee ratings, wondering whether the ABA was any good at evaluating nominees. You can take a look at its historical ratings.

But President Joe Biden is experiencing an unprecedented hot streak. He’s had 100 ABA judicial nominee evaluations returned, and not a single one of them had a single “not qualified” vote among them.

Mr. Biden is the third president, joining Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, to reject the ABA’s “pre-screening” power in evaluating judicial nominees. In the past, a president would submit potential nominees to the ABA and receive a rating back. Most of the time, a majority “not qualified” vote would sink the potential nominee, and the person would never face a formal nomination. Mr. Bush first broke the tradition on grounds that the ABA tended to give more conservative nominees lower ratings than more progressive nominees.

President Barack Obama resumed the tradition. In his first three years, the ABA, apparently, gave outright “not qualified” ratings (a majority vote of “not qualified”) to 14 potential nominees. For another 7 nominees, the ABA gave a minority vote of “not qualified.”

As a point of comparison (Democratic to Democratic administrations), Mr. Biden has zero, majority or minority “not qualified.” That’s a remarkable achievement. Given how many candidates Mr. Obama named who received a “not qualified,” it suggests some combination of White House vetting and ABA reviewing have changed, although it’s entirely unclear how to measure this. But it does show that Mr. Biden is on an unprecedented hot streak.