Biden Administration Adds to Growing List of Unqualified Judicial Nominees
‘This is the caliber of judicial nominees this Administration is sending the Senate. Folks who couldn’t pass a high school civics exam on the Constitution, and folks who threaten a high-school girl when she demands accountability for being attacked… The American people deserve the best and brightest. The Democrats are producing… something else.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding judicial nominations:
“The quality of President Biden’s judicial nominees has been in the headlines recently — for all the wrong reasons.
“Recently the White House celebrated their 100th judicial confirmation with a bizarre press release that spent less than one sentence talking about legal qualifications before devoting five paragraphs to the nominees’ demographics.
“Then a newly-published analysis pointed out that the nominees whom Democrats have been confirming have been significantly less likely to have clerked at the Supreme Court, clerked at a circuit court, or graduated law school with top academic honors compared to the judges that Republicans spent the previous four years confirming.
“Fewer prestigious clerkships and fewer academic honors.
“Not terribly surprisingly, it appears this qualifications gap may also be leading to a job performance gap. A law professor at the University of Iowa has found that the first 10 Biden-appointed appellate judges have written around 140 majority opinions between them, or an average of 14 opinions each.
“By contrast, the first 12 appellate judges confirmed during the previous administration had written 415 majority opinions by February 2019, or 34 each, over a comparable time period.
“‘It appears President Biden’s court of appeals judges are publishing opinions … less frequently than other recent judges.’
“Tomorrow, our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee will meet for a markup to consider a slate of nominees including the now-infamous nominee from Washington state who was unable to recall what Article V or Article II of the United States Constitution say.
“This was not exactly the bar exam, Mr. President, this was ‘basic constitutional literacy 101’! And this person on whom President Biden wants to bestow a lifetime appointment flunked.
“Democrats are also trying to push forward the nomination of Michael Delaney, an attorney from New Hampshire who threatened a teenage Jane Doe victim of sexual assault that he’d fight to strip away her anonymity and make her name a national story if she and her family did not settle their civil suit against her powerful prep school before it went to trial.
“Even some of our Democratic colleagues seem troubled. Senator Blumenthal says he ‘has concerns’ about this nominee. Chairman Durbin admitted Delaney had ‘a rough hearing.’ Senator Feinstein sent this nominee from her own party’s White House a long list of detailed written questions.
“This is the caliber of judicial nominees this Administration is sending the Senate. Folks who couldn’t pass a high school civics exam on the Constitution, and folks who threaten a high-school girl when she demands accountability for being attacked.
“By the way, this brave young lady is outraged that President Biden is trying to reward her legal tormentor with a lifetime appointment, and that our two Democratic colleagues from New Hampshire are backing him.
“She just explained in a courageous op-ed for the Boston Globe how she received rape threats and death threats; how photos of her and her sisters were uploaded to hateful web sites; how people took out inappropriate classified ads using her family’s information.
“All because she dared to speak out and seek justice for what she’d suffered.
“This young lady wrote, ‘Biden’s nomination as well as the nominee’s support from Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire show me and other survivors that they approve of what Delaney and St. Paul’s School put me and my family through… Michael Delaney’s nomination must be withdrawn.’
“The American people deserve the best and brightest.
“The Democrats are producing… something else.”
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Related Issues: Judicial Nominations, Senate Democrats
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