ABOVE: President Joe Biden, photo via Biden’s Facebook.
The White House released a list July 29 announcing President Biden’s nominations of eight new federal judicial nominees and his intent to nominate a ninth federal judicial nominee.
This is the president’s twenty-fourth round of nominees for federal judicial positions and his eleventh slate of nominations in 2022, bringing the number of announced federal judicial nominees to 132.
If confirmed, this slate would include:
- The first openly LGBTQ judge to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
- The second Latina to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
- The second AAPI woman—and first Chinese American woman—to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
The president’s choice for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California is Judge Daniel Calabretta, who has served as a judge on the Superior Court of Sacramento County in California since 2019.
He is openly gay and previously served as a Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary in the Office of Governor Jerry Brown from 2013 to 2018 and as a Deputy Attorney General in the California Department of Justice from 2008 to 2013.
Judge Calabretta was an associate at Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP from 2005 to 2008. He served as a law clerk for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court from 2004 to 2005 and for Judge William Fletcher on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2003 to 2004.
Calabretta received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2003 and his B.A. from Princeton University in 2000.
The president also nominated Araceli Martinez-Olguin as his choice for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Araceli Martinez-Olguin is a supervising attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, where she has worked since 2018. She previously served as the managing attorney at the Immigrants’ Rights Project at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, California from 2017 to 2018 and as an attorney for the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights from 2016 to 2017.
Ms. Martinez-Olguin also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union and at Legal Aid at Work’s National Origin and Immigrants’ Rights Program. Ms. Martinez-Olguin served as a law clerk for Judge David Briones on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas from 2004 to 2006.
She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2004 and her A.B. from Princeton University in 1999.
Biden’s choice for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California is Judge Rita F. Lin who has served as a judge on the Superior Court of San Francisco County, California since 2018.
She was previously an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California from 2014 to 2018. Before that, Judge Lin was a partner at Morrison and Foerster LLP, where she worked from 2004 to 2014.
She served as a law clerk for Judge Sandra Lynch on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 2003 to 2004.
Judge Lin received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2003 and B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 2000.
U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement after the White House announced that President Biden nominated three additional individuals to California-based judgeships:
“We applaud President Biden’s nominations of Judge Daniel Calabretta, Judge Lin, and Araceli Martinez-Olguin to serve on California’s district courts. Each has unique and extensive experience in the legal field that will serve California well on the bench. We urge our colleagues in the Senate to support their swift confirmation.”
