The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Lauren King to serve as a federal judge in Seattle, making her only the sixth Native American to ever sit on the bench in the federal judiciary's 232-year history (article available here).
The vote cleared the way for King to become only the fourth active Native American federal judge nationally and the first ever in Washington state. She is the fifteenth of President Joe Biden's 53 judicial nominees to win confirmation.
King, a citizen of the Oklahoma-based Muscogee Nation, is the second Native American to be confirmed to the bench under Biden, after the Senate in June confirmed Lydia Griggsby, who is also Black, to serve as a federal district judge in Maryland.
The only other active Native American judges are U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa in Arizona, and U.S. District Judge Ada Elene Brown in Dallas.