Loren AliKhan Confirmed as Federal Judge for District Court in Washington, D.C.

AliKhan becomes the 161st judge confirmed since Joe Biden became President.

The U.S. Senate today held a recorded vote to confirm one individual as an Article III federal judge. With this confirmation, 161 judges nominated by President Joe Biden have now been confirmed by the Senate. With today’s action, 122 of Biden’s judicial nominees have been approved for service on federal district courts.

In a 50-50 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie, Loren L. AliKhan was confirmed as a Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She is Biden’s fourth confirmation to the 15-person court, with two additional vacancies where Biden has one nominee awaiting confirmation by the Senate and hasn’t named a nominee for the other.

With AliKhan, three of Biden’s nominees remain in active service on the D.C. district court, while Florence Y. Pan was subsequently elevated to the D.C. Court of Appeals. Once commissioned, AliKhan will become the first female South Asian judge to serve on this court.

AliKhan assumes a Washington, D.C.-based seat previously held by Amy Berman Jackson, who took senior status in May 2023. A nominee of President Barack Obama, Jackson served on this court from 2011 to 2023. AliKhan was nominated to this seat on the federal judiciary by Biden in May 2023.

In 2013, AliKhan joined the Office of the District of Columbia Attorney General as a Deputy Solicitor General. In March 2018, she was appointed as the District’s second-ever Solicitor General. Since February 2022, she has served as an Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals - the District’s highest court and equivalent to a state supreme court.

Elsewhere, Harris has now made history by casting two tie-breaking votes today - first to invoke cloture on the AliKhan nomination and then to actually confirm her. With these votes, she now holds the record for most tie-breaking votes cast in the Senate by a Vice President in the nation’s history. She has now done so 33 times.