Two of President Joe Biden's earliest picks for the federal bench cleared a key hurdle Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced both to serve on Maryland district court seats (article available here).
The panel favorably reported U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah L. Boardman, who would move up to a district judgeship after two years in her current role. Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, a former federal prosecutor and judge on the term-limited U.S. Court of Federal Claims, won the committee's approval. Both picks are part of President Biden's first wave of historic diverse judicial nominations, which he revealed March 30. Judge Boardman spent much of her career as a federal defender in Baltimore.
Judge Griggsby, if confirmed, would be the first African American woman to serve as a district judge in the Maryland federal court.