PORTLAND — Adrienne Nelson finally will take a seat on the U.S. District Court in Portland.

The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nomination of Nelson to a federal judgeship by a 52-46 vote on Feb. 15. It followed action Feb. 2 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had cleared her nomination back on Dec. 1. Congress ended its session before the full Senate could vote.

Nelson is a resident of Clackamas County.

In his remarks in support of her nomination, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said this:

“There is so much to like … about Judge Nelson, but what I like most is that she’s a role model for young people. Young people in my state really look up to Judge Nelson; in fact, there is an Adrienne C. Nelson High School (2021) in Happy Valley. Everybody reports that the students there just love her.”

Nelson, 55, was a Multnomah County circuit judge before Gov. Kate Brown appointed her at the start of 2018 as the first Black justice on the Oregon Supreme Court. Before Gov. Ted Kulongoski named her to the bench in 2006, she worked at Multnomah Defenders Inc., the Portland law firm of Bennett, Hartman, Morris & Kaplan, and Portland State University.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in 1989 from the University of Arkansas and her law degree in 1993 from the University of Texas at Austin.

Biden issued a statement the previous day, when the Senate confirmed his 100th appointment to the federal district and appeals courts, anticipating Senate approval of his nomination of Nelson.

He said in part:

“I’m especially proud that the nominees I have put forward — and the Senate has confirmed —represent the diversity that is one of our best assets as a nation, and that our shared work has broken so many barriers in just two years.

“We have made important progress in ensuring that the federal judiciary not only looks more like the nation as a whole, but also includes judges from professional backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented on the bench… Seventy-six percent of the Article III judges confirmed during my administration have been women, and 68% have been people of color.”

Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said this in a statement after the Senate vote:

“Justice Nelson is committed to protecting the rights of all people, as demonstrated by her experience as a fair-minded jurist on the state bench and her work as a public defender. Diversity, including having judges with diverse and historically underrepresented personal and professional experiences, helps improve judicial decision-making… We celebrate Justice Nelson and this historic confirmation.”

She will be the first Black woman to sit as a federal judge in Oregon. Ancer Haggerty, who served on the court from 1993 until 2014, was the first Black man.