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Monroe County Court Judge Meredith Vacca on Wednesday became the first woman of color and the first Asian-American to become a federal judge in western New York.
The Senate Wednesday confirmed Vacca, a 43-year-old Democrat, by a vote of 50 to 41 with some Republican support.
Afterward, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who advocated for Vacca, said in a statement, “The Senate confirmation of Judge Meredith Vacca – a proud Rochester native, Korean-American and Buffalo Law grad – is a historic moment for Western New York and Rochester.”
Vacca will be the first woman of color in the 17-county western federal court district, which stretches to the Pennsylvania line and has Rochester and Buffalo as its hubs.
“As a Korean-American who was adopted at six months old and comes from a family of attorneys, she has a unique perspective and deep commitment to equal justice for all,” Schumer said in his statement. “Today, Judge Vacca is making history as the first woman of color and first Asian American to serve as judge in the Western District of New York.”
Vacca is a graduate of Colgate University and the state University of New York at Buffalo Law School. Her father, Paul Vacca, is a well-known criminal defense lawyer in Rochester.
Vacca was a prosecutor in the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office from 2007 until her 2020 election to county court. During her tenure there, she rose through the ranks, ultimately prosecuting some of the county’s worst allegations of child abuse and domestic violence. She has not practiced in federal court previously.
Carl Tobias, a federal judicial nominations expert and law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, has tracked the judicial nominees and predicted earlier this year that Vacca would likely clear the vetting and nomination process.
“The Senate confirmed Meredith Vacca on a 50-41 vote that was not surprising, because she was a very experienced, mainstream nominee, who had a relatively smooth hearing and a bipartisan Judiciary Committee vote,” he said Wednesday.