Man, it's about time. Today, the Senate finally held a vote to confirm Judge Edward Chen as U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California. He was confirmed by a vote of 56-42. That took long enough. Judge Chen was first nominated on August 6, 2009 -- over 600 days ago! His confirmation is also historic -- it marks the first time an Asian American judge has been appointed to the federal district court in San Francisco, and he's only the second Asian American federal district court judge in the Northern California district (after Lucy Koh, who was confirmed last year).
Judge Chen has served as a federal magistrate judge for the past ten years, and has over twenty years of litigation experience prior to the bench, including a role on the legal team that overturned the conviction of Fred Korematsu.
He graduated in the top ten percent of his undergraduate and law school classes at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been rated by the American Bar Association as unanimously well qualified.
With Senate confirmation of the nomination of Judge Chen, President Obama has confirmed more Asian Pacific American federal judges than any other President in history. There are now fourteen active Asian Pacific American Article III judges in the nation, seven of whom were nominated by President Obama.
(Thanks to NAPABA, Asian American Justice Center, OCA and CAPAC.)
