A clo­ture peti­tion recent­ly filed in the U.S. Sen­ate sug­gests that we are close to a final vote on the con­fir­ma­tion of Pres­i­dent Biden’s nom­i­na­tions of Grant Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge David Estudil­lo and civ­il rights attor­ney Tana Lin to the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Washington.

This is a big deal, for diver­si­ty on the fed­er­al bench as well as strength­en­ing a fed­er­al bench that has deliv­ered land­mark deci­sions. As Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, D‑Washington, put it when the nom­i­na­tions were announced: “The fed­er­al judi­cial sys­tem plays a deeply sig­nif­i­cant role in shap­ing our every­day lives: It’s impor­tant to appoint high­ly qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als who also reflect the make­up of our country.”

When appoint­ed by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to his Grant Coun­ty post in 2015, Estudil­lo became the first Lati­no to serve as a supe­ri­or court judge east of the Cas­cades. He has since been retained by vot­ers in the con­ser­v­a­tive Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton coun­ty, despite Trumpian cam­paign tac­tics.

Lin would become the first Asian Amer­i­can on the fed­er­al bench in West­ern Wash­ing­ton. She has prac­ticed civ­il rights law and once worked for the Civ­il Rights Divi­sion of the U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment. She is pres­i­dent of the board of direc­tors of the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Washington.

The names were put for­ward by Sen­a­tors Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington, in accor­dance with tra­di­tion. They “reflect the diver­si­ty we need on the fed­er­al bench,” said Cantwell, and both are “high­ly qualified.”

They need to be. Lives of North­west­ern­ers have been shaped by deci­sions com­ing down from the fed­er­al cour­t­house. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, which has increas­ing­ly sided with busi­ness and weak­ened civ­il rights enforce­ment, the under­dog has often emerged as top dog in rul­ings here.

The most famous rul­ing came in 1974 when U.S. Dis­trict Judge George Boldt, a Richard Nixon appointee, ruled that Native Amer­i­can tribes were enti­tled to fifty per­cent of the com­mer­cial salmon catch.

The fish­ing indus­try was out­raged: A block­ade of fish­ing boats greet­ed Pres­i­dent Ger­ald Ford when he arrived for a 1976 ral­ly at the Seat­tle waterfront.

Still, despite pre­dic­tions from then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Slade Gor­ton, the Boldt deci­sion held up on appeal. And, thanks to Native Amer­i­can leader Bil­ly Frank, Jr., it became an impe­tus for restora­tion of dec­i­mat­ed salmon runs. To catch fish, Frank explained, both native and non-native fish­ers need­ed fish.

As sug­gest­ed by Inslee’s appoint­ment of Estudil­lo, the His­pan­ic pop­u­la­tion of East­ern Wash­ing­ton has found itself large­ly exclud­ed from high office.

And not by accident.

OneAm­er­i­ca and the ACLU, with help from the Perkins Coie law firm, won a land­mark rul­ing when they chal­lenged Yakima’s at-large sys­tem for elect­ing city Coun­cil mem­bers. U.S. Dis­trict Judge Thomas Rice found that by at-large vot­ing “the non-Lati­no major­i­ty in Yaki­ma rou­tine­ly suf­fo­cates the vot­ing pref­er­ences of the Lati­no minority.”

Three can­di­dates from the Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty were sub­se­quent­ly elect­ed to the City Coun­cil. Now it’s the coun­ty’s turn. Under a set­tle­ment now pend­ing in Kit­ti­tas Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, Yaki­ma Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers will hence­forth be both nom­i­nat­ed and elect­ed by dis­trict rather than at large.

There are oth­er rul­ings that come to mind, too.

For exam­ple: Unpro­tect­ed old-growth for­est was being clear cut at a rate of 60,000 acres a year in fed­er­al forests of the Pacif­ic Northwest.

U.S. Dis­trict Judge Bill Dwyer ruled that the U.S. For­est Ser­vice was vio­lat­ing the Endan­gered Species Act by imper­il­ing the north­ern spot­ted owl.

Sen­a­tor Slade Gor­ton had cham­pi­oned Dwyer’s nom­i­na­tion to the fed­er­al bench by Pres­i­dent Rea­gan, but show­ered his old friend with denunciations.

Dwyer was also to throw out Washington’s ini­tia­tive decree­ing term lim­its for fed­er­al office­hold­ers, in a Supreme Court-qual­i­ty opin­ion that held up through appeal. Along with now senior U.S. Dis­trict Judge Jack Coughenouer – who pres­i­dent over tri­al of the Mil­len­ni­al Bomber – Dwyer was a pow­er­ful pres­ence whose influ­ence extend­ed beyond the local bench.

The most famous recent rul­ing out of the West­ern Dis­trict came in 2017, when U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Robart grant­ed a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order block­ing Don­ald Trump’s first trav­el ban tar­get­ing Mus­lims from going into effect.

The U.S. Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals lat­er upheld Robart’s rul­ing, lead­ing to Trump’s Twit­ter tantrum against a “so-called judge.”

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son has made mas­ter­ful use of U.S. Dis­trict Courts, in both West­ern and East­ern Dis­tricts of Wash­ing­ton, to block Trump actions, from roll­backs of envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions to attempts at ham­string­ing fed­er­al fund­ing to Planned Par­ent­hood. Judge Robart would go on CBS’ “60 Min­utes” to relate the threats and hate mail he received from sup­port­ers of the for­mer president.

(Robart has also presided over the U.S. Jus­tice Department’s con­sent decree and over­seen reforms to the Seat­tle Police Department.)

Assum­ing con­fir­ma­tion by the U.S. Sen­ate, Judges Estudil­lo and Lin can expect a full work­load. The West­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton has been reduced to just two active dis­trict judges — Ricar­do Mar­tinez and Richard Jones – while nine judges on senior sta­tus con­tin­ue to car­ry heavy work­loads.  Lawyers who are unpre­pared appear at their own risk in Jack Coughenouer’s courtroom.

The new judges can look around for reminders of jus­tice in the Northwest.

The Nisqually Nation­al Wildlife Refuge bears the name of Bil­ly Frank, Jr., who endured thir­ty plus arrests while cham­pi­oning trib­al fish­ing rights.

The jury room at Seattle’s new fed­er­al cour­t­house is named for Bill Dwyer, who pub­lished a book cel­e­brat­ing the jury sys­tem as he was dying of cancer.

The old fed­er­al cour­t­house is named for William K. Naka­mu­ra, a Japan­ese-Amer­i­can sent to an intern­ment camp with his fam­i­ly in 1942, but was award­ed the Con­gres­sion­al Medal of Hon­or as a sol­dier on the Ital­ian front in World War II. He was killed on Inde­pen­dence Day in 1944.