Alex Padilla: “for many people--not just here in and around the Capitol but across the country--the past few weeks have been a wake-up…”

“for many people--not just here in and around the Capitol but across the country--the past few weeks have been a wake-up call--a wake-up call to see the stakes of our fight for a fair judiciary. From abortion rights to free speech to gun violence, Federal judges make countless decisions that impact our daily lives. We have been reminded of that in a very significant way. But our current Federal bench is not representative of the diversity of our country and our democracy. We have a lot of work to do to rebuild the judiciary in a way that deserves the faith of the American people, to build a judiciary that reflects and represents the diverse Nation that it serves. I know we have talked about it before. We have been chipping away at it, not just through the Judiciary Committee but through a number of circuit court judges and district court judges across the country, including in California. I am certainly proud of the significant step that we took recently with the confirmation of soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. But for all the progress we have made this last year, we still have a lot of work to do, especially at the lower court level, where almost all Federal cases are heard. Many are decided there, and that is it.…”