Credit: (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

WASHINGTON — George Helmy’s votes to confirm judicial nominations of the Biden administration may be the most significant legacy of his brief stint in Congress.

In his first week in the Senate, Helmy introduced legislation to add the name of Bill Pascrell, the late Democratic congressman, to facilities of Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park. He filed another bill about cancer prevention and firefighters.

Helmy attended committee hearings. He assumed the Senate desk of former Sen. Bob Menendez. And he reconstituted Menendez’s offices in New Jersey and Washington, carrying over ex-Menendez staffers.

But the bulk of Helmy’s voting duties until he departs after the election in November is likely to consist of confirming judicial nominees of the Biden administration, which is racing to match or surpass 234 — the total the Trump administration reached in four years — before a new Senate is seated in January.

In an interview in the Senate subway Thursday, Helmy noted the series of votes on judges he took last week, adding he was “getting really read-up on these judges quickly.”

Voting on judges, what about Mangi?

“I didn’t know who they were, and I’ve taken already five or six votes on judges,” Helmy said. ‘I know that’s a priority for Leader Schumer,” he said of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat. “It’s a priority for the White House.”

During President Joe Biden’s tenure, Democrats have held slim majorities in the Senate of 50-50 and then 51-49. As of Thursday, the Senate had confirmed a total of 209 Biden nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, district courts, appellate courts and the U.S. Court of International Trade.

That 209 figure is the same total former President Donald Trump hit as of Sept. 12 and more than former President Barack Obama, who had seen 158 of his judicial nominees confirmed at the same point in his presidency, according to a count the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains.

The Senate is scheduled to be in session in Washington for two more weeks, until it recesses to allow members to campaign. Senators are scheduled to return for five weeks, starting Nov. 12.

When Gov. Phil Murphy announced Helmy’s appointment, he also said Helmy would resign once the election results of the Senate race to fill Menendez’s seat are certified.

That leaves little time for Senate Democrats to shepherd into confirmation other Biden nominees, including Adeel Mangi, a Jersey City trial attorney picked for a Philadelphia-based appeals court that covers New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Many Senate Republicans and some Democrats in tight reelection races have balked at confirming Mangi, who was born in Pakistan, over his ties to a legal group at Rutgers University.

“It seems that’s most likely to be taken up in the lame duck,” Helmy said Thursday, referring to the congressional window after Election Day. “I don’t see anything done before the end of September.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which votes on judicial nominees before they reach the full chamber, said Democrats are sticking with Mangi.

“Still on the calendar,” Durbin said in an interview Thursday. “We don’t plan on scheduling him in September.”

Hello, goodbye

When Gov. Phil Murphy announced Helmy’s appointment, he also said Helmy would resign once the election results of the Senate race to fill Menendez’s seat are certified. Murphy said he would then name the winner, either Rep. Andy Kim (D-3rd) or Republican businessman Curtis Bashaw, to fill the remainder of the term.

If Bashaw were to win — an unlikely prospect since New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since the 1970s — his victory would scramble the Democrats’ push on judges.

Though some Republican senators have at times voted for Biden-nominated judges, including Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, many of the president’s picks have cleared the Senate on narrow margins.

The Senate has one vote scheduled Monday: a confirmation vote for an appeals judge from Tennessee.