During the 2022 National Policy Conference, RNLA presented the Junior Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, with this year's Hon. Edwin Meese III Award, which is bestowed upon an individual who has upheld the rule of law in the face of adverse political challenges.

RNLA’s National Policy Conference is in one week and we thought we would highlight four of the speakers' views on the just-completed Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.  But as Senator Tom Cotton, who will be awarded the Ed Meese Award at the conference, points out:

The media's cheerleading for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation, despite her soft-on-crime record, goes beyond bias—it's propaganda.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) March 24, 2022

The Republican National Lawyers Association is excited to announce that Senator Tom Cotton is the recipient of the 2022 Hon. Edwin Meese III Award, which is bestowed upon an individual who has upheld the rule of law in the face of adverse political challenges. The award will be presented at RNLA's 2022 National Policy Conference in Arlington, Virginia. RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen stated:

This award was meant for those who stand up to the slings and arrows of false accusations from liberals such as The New York Times. Cotton has not only stood up, he has been proven right time and time again.

Senator Cotton was one of the first to talk about the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a Chinese lab, and the media crucified him. Yet as time passed, reality backed Senator Cotton's warnings.

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee considered the controversial nomination of Vanita Gupta to be associate attorney general. The vote on Gupta's nomination ended in a tie. As reported by CNN:

This afternoon, President Trump announced 20 additional distinguished attorneys and judges to the list of nominees he would consider for any future Supreme Court vacancy.  Polling showed that then-candidate Trump's list in 2016 was important to many voters who supported him, and he kept his promise of choosing off the list when he nominated Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Court.  Further, President Trump selected from his list for many of his highly qualified nominees to lower federal courts during his first term, providing unprecedented transparency regarding judicial nominations from a presidential candidate.

By contrast, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has not released a list, nor has he indicated that he will release one, leaving voters to wonder whom he would consider for any Supreme Court vacancy.  Would a President Biden choose off the troubling Demand Justice list or the secret Alliance for Justice list?  Both possibilities should terrify any American who values the rule of law.

Senator Tom Cotton was the first to recognize the coming COVID-19 pandemic.  As John McCormack wrote in National Review in an article entitled "The Senator Who Saw the Coronavirus Coming":

Tom Cotton was both the first and the loudest voice in Congress to sound the alarm about the looming pandemic.

While others slept, Tom Cotton was warning anyone who would listen that the coronavirus was coming for America.

On January 22, one day before the Chinese government began a quarantine of Wuhan to contain the spread of the virus, the Arkansas senator sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar encouraging the Trump administration to consider banning travel between China and the United States and warning that the Communist regime could be covering up how dangerous the disease really was. That same day, he amplified his warnings on Twitter and in an appearance on the radio program of Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade. . . .

“Two things struck me about China’s response,” he says. “First their deceit and their dishonesty going back to early December. And second, the extreme draconian measures they had taken. By the third week of January, they had more than 75 million people on lockdown. They were confined to their homes and apartments, otherwise they were arrested. In some cases, the front doors of those buildings were welded shut. All schools had shut down. Hong Kong had banned flights from the mainland. [These are] the kind of extreme, draconian measures that you would only take in a position of power in China if you were greatly worried about the spread of this virus.”

Today, the House passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump with no Republican support.  There were a few Democrats voting with the Republicans and one voting present. Here are some of the best reactions from Republican House leaders to today's debate.