OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Several GOP senators have taken a surprising turn by collaborating with Democratic colleagues to move forward with President Joe Biden’s nominees for federal court lifetime appointments in the absence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)., which is likely to upset the Republican voter base.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee discharged seven nominees from President Joe Biden on April 20 as at least one Republican joined all remaining Democrats on the panel,” The Epoch Times reported on Friday.
Jeffrey Cummings and LaShonda Hunt, nominated for U.S. District Court judgeships in the Northern District of Illinois, along with Orelia Merchant, nominated for a U.S. District Court judgeship in the Eastern District of New York, received assistance from GOP senators to advance their nominations, the news outlet reported.
Additionally, Michael Farbiarz and Robert Kirsch, who were nominated for U.S. District Court judgeships in the District of New Jersey, as well as Monica Almadani and Wesley Hsu, who were nominated for U.S. District Court judgeships in the Central District of California, received similar assistance from GOP senators to move forward in the nomination process, said the report.
Despite the Democrats’ majority on the Judiciary panel, the absence of Feinstein, who has been under treatment for shingles, has complicated the majority party’s agenda. Although she requested to be temporarily replaced due to her shingles battle, her bid was blocked by Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Nonetheless, a few Republicans on the committee, including Graham, have collaborated with the Democrats to support Biden’s nominees in recent days.
“Our agenda includes a number of judicial nominees who have been sitting on the agenda for some time. Some have bipartisan support. There’s nothing to prevent us from calling and voting on these nominees today, even in Sen. Feinstein’s absence,” Durbin told reporters as he prepared to hold the first nomination votes in weeks. “I understand we now have agreement to vote on several of them. I’ve spoken to Sen. Graham.”
Graham added: “Today, I’m going to do my part, and my colleagues will vote the way they think is best, to keep the committee moving forward.”
Graham was the sole Republican to vote in favor of three of the nominees. However, multiple other Republicans, including Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), voted in favor of other nominees, The Epoch Times noted.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently said on the Senate floor that nominees “who are mainstream and qualified” would earn bipartisan support. But he added that Feinstein’s absence would mean “that Democrats aren’t able to push through a small fraction of their nominees who are so extreme and so unqualified that they cannot win a single Republican vote in committee.”
One of former President Donald Trump’s crowning achievements, his supporters have regularly hailed, was his ability to get constitutionalist judges appointed to the federal bench. In fact, thanks to the political deftness of McConnell and a bare Republican Senate majority, Trump managed to fill three U.S. Supreme Court vacancies during his four-year term.
In March 2022, though, Trump spared no effort in bashing Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson, over several responses and non-answers she gave to questions about her record asked by GOP senators during her confirmation hearing.
“The left has become so extreme that we now have a justice being nominated to the Supreme Court who testified under oath that she could not say what a woman is,” Trump said during a “Save America” rally in Commerce, Ga.
“If she can’t even say what a woman is. How on earth can she be trusted to say what the Constitution is?” the former president added.
"If Judge Jackson can't even say what a woman is, how on earth could she be trusted to say what the Constitution is!" -President Trump
STOP Her Confirmation–> https://t.co/ioSml4zmfQ pic.twitter.com/ocXTFxKybD
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) March 27, 2022
“A party that’s unwilling to admit that men and women are biologically different, in defiance of all scientific and human history, is a party that should not be anywhere near the levers of power,” he noted, as did other observers on social media.
The former president’s remarks come after three days’ worth of hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week in which senators attempted to get answers to a number of concerning issues but often failed to do so.
