Elizabeth Warren’s Million (and Four)

Here are two numbers relating to Elizabeth Warren today: 1,000,000 and 4.

She’s nearing the million mark in fans on her campaign-side, “public figure” Facebook page. A million is a lot for a politician; I believe she will be only the second current US Senator to reach that mark. Here are the top 10 as of Friday, August 1:

1. Rand Paul (R-KY) 1,789,810

2. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) 995,359

3. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 858,692

4. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 692,464

5. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) 533,402

6. John Cornyn (R-TX) 418,932

7. Al Franken (D-MN) 412,427

8. Cory Booker (D-NJ) 276,640

9. Mike Lee (R-UT) 202,061

10. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 149,621

The other number is perhaps less fun, but probably more important. Today we learned that Warren will probably have her fourth recommended judge placed on the US District Court of Massachusetts.

President Barack Obama announced that he is nominating Allison Burroughs to that position. Burroughs, a former assistant US Attorney, currently works at Nutter, McClennen and Fish in Boston. If confirmed, she would be Obama’s 6th appointee to that court, meaning that your odds of getting an Obama-appointed judge for your case there will be better than one-in-three.

That includes three nominated by Obama on January 6, 2014, in a flurry of nominations aimed at filling up a huge backlog of vacancies. All three had been formally recommended by the senior US Senator and former Harvard law professor: Indira Talwani, Mark Mastroianni, and Leo Sorokin. All three have since been confirmed.

Burroughs, who was recommended by both Warren and Ed Markey, should follow them into the Moakley Courthouse. That will make four of E-Dubs hand-picked judges in the building — to go with those million fans across the country. Not a bad show of influence, for someone not even half-way through her first term in public office.