This week on Capitol Hill, all eyes were on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson s high-profile and historic confirmation hearing.

But in the background, Senate Democrats were quietly advancing lots of President Joe Bidens other nominees to lifetime federal court seats some of whom were also historic.

Democrats teed up and confirmed eight of Bidens court picks as Jacksons hearing was underway. Thats a huge number of judges to process in a matter of days, and brings Bidens total number of confirmed judges to 56 adding to his record of confirming more lifetime federal judges than decades of past presidents by this point in their terms.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took a victory lap on the Senate floor on Thursday, though it was easy to miss with all the attention on the Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

Yesterday we confirmed another six judges to important positions on the federal bench and all of them, I am happy to say, with bipartisan support, he said. We have now confirmed 56 56! judges under this Democratic Senate majority, and I thank my colleagues for their patience and for keeping the pace moving here on the floor last night.

One of the judicial nominees in this weeks mix was Alison Nathan, 49, who will now sit on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Nathan has served as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York since 2011, and she previously served as associate White House counsel for President Barack Obama.

Nathans confirmation makes her the second openly lesbian woman to ever serve on a U.S. appeals court. The first was Judge Beth Robinson, who was just confirmed in November to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.