As we have documented on this blog, most recently here, it was Joe Biden who started blocking or attempting to block highly qualified judicial nominees nominated by Republican Presidents. Democrats took this “borking” strategy to the extreme of obstructing multiple nominees. And now they are angry that conservatives are fighting back.
Senate Democrats are going after conservatives’ influence over the federal judiciary, but it’s unclear how they plan to counter the immediate impact of President Donald Trump’s wave of judicial nominees.
RNLA is one of the groups that fights to confirm conservative judicial nominees. We wish Democrats would judge these nominees on their merits, but as Lindsey Graham points in the same article:
“The idea that you would be a conservative Republican is a bad thing only if you’re a liberal Democrat,” Graham said at the hearing last week. “Who do you think we’re going to pick? We’re going to pick people that think like us that will be good judges.”
Of course, the solutions offered in their plan are incredibly hypocritical.
The report promises that Senate Democrats will come up with “legislative solutions” in the near future to address what they described as “too much dark money” around the courts, as well as future reports to spotlight the conservative influence.
Too much dark money? Senator Schumer, your hypocrisy is showing.
A political action committee linked to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has received $1.7 million from a liberal dark money group for shared staff and office space since 2015, tax and Federal Election Commission forms show.
Schumer, who has said that dark money is "casting a shadow over our political process," has condemned groups on the right that do not disclose their funders. He also demanded one right-leaning organization release a list of its donors, saying the public "deserves to know who is funding" campaigns against Democrats.
Despite the condemnation of dark money groups, the Schumer-linked Senate Majority PAC, which works to elect Democrats in the Senate, is closely affiliated with Majority Forward, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not disclose its funders.
From June 18, 2015, to late 2018, Majority Forward paid the Senate Majority PAC for the "sharing of facilities, equipment, mailing lists, or other assets" and employees. The group pushed $487,870 to the PAC for office space while disbursing another $1.2 million for employees, three years‘ worth of tax forms and FEC records show.
According to Democrats, dark money, like judges, is only bad when it goes to Republicans. Democrats should stop complaining that Republicans are beating them on a level playing field. Democrats politicized the judicial confirmation process, but fortunately for all, Republicans nominate judges who act like “umpires” and respect the rule of law.