Earlier this week, RNLA highlighted Senate Democrats' scheme to "temporarily" replace Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee.
Republicans must come together and vote against the Democrats' scheme to "temporarily" replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee. The future of the federal judiciary is at stake. https://t.co/nSv2nFmLqu
— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) April 17, 2023
One of the practical consequences if this scheme succeeds is that Democrats will once again have the ability to ram radical and/or disqualified judicial nominees through the Committee. Below are some of the most radical and disqualified nominees currently pending before the Senate.
Nancy Abudu
RNLA formally opposes the nomination of Nancy Abudu to the Eleventh Circuit. Abudu is currently the strategic litigation director for the radical Southern Poverty Law Center.
RNLA Vice President for Judicial Affairs Audrey Perry Martin recently wrote for Townhall:
Like her employer, Abudu has a well-documented track record of making extreme statements like comparing felons’ loss of voting rights to slavery and equating commonsense election reforms to voter suppression. As recently as 2021, Abudu accused officials in Alabama of being “distressingly committed to the state’s legacy of voter suppression.” These are just a few examples of how Abudu’s viewpoints fall outside of the mainstream.
Abudu is the poster child for the far-Left’s push to install radical judicial nominees who would upend America’s legal system, and Senate Democrats and the Biden Administration will not give up on her nomination even though it has been pending confirmation for more than a year.
Charnelle Bjelkengren
Charnelle Bjelkengren is nominated the to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. Bjelkengren made headlines after her confirmation hearing for her inability to answer basic questions about the U.S. Constitution.
The video of Bjelkengren's confirmation hearing speaks for itself.
JUDICIARY: At yesterday's Senate Judiciary Cmte hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, Pres. Biden's nominee to be US District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington, what Articles 2 and 5 of the Constitution do, but she was unable to do so. pic.twitter.com/VqgQDsKmmg
— Forbes (@Forbes) January 26, 2023
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out, whether a nominee is qualified seems to be an afterthought for Democrats:
"For years now, Washington Democrats' rhetoric around judicial nominations has often treated actual qualifications as an afterthought," said McConnell. "Democrats were not particularly impressed or moved by the top-shelf professional excellence or the academic brilliance that the last Republican administration's nominees possessed in spades. And apparently, they don't count those qualities as particularly high priorities now that they're the ones doing the nominating."
Nusrat Jahan Choudhury
Nusrat Jahan Choudhury is nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Choudhury is known for her inflammatory rhetoric about the relationship between law enforcement and Black communities.
A statement in opposition to Choudhury's hearing by the Fraternal Order of Police explained:
At the hearing, she was asked if she believed that “cops kill unarmed Black men in America every single day”—a statement she made while participating as a panelist at Princeton University. She did not deny making this blatantly false claim and stated that she made the statement in her “role as an advocate” to make a “rhetorical point.” I was shocked that she unapologetically embraced this comment.
Our nation has a problem with hateful rhetoric now and it is getting worse. We see hateful speech directed at Jews in New Jersey and New York and it has translated into increasing violence targeting the Jewish community. Nationwide, hate speech denigrating Asian-Americans has led to an increase in violence against these communities. Brutal bias and hateful rhetoric aimed at law enforcement officers have led to the same—more officers were shot in the line of duty last year than any time since this data was first collected.
In all of these cases—in ALL of them—hate-fueled rhetoric, in many cases protected speech as Ms. Choudhury’s remark certainly was in the academic confines of Princeton University, is leading to violence. These words, left unchallenged, are too often transformed by violent individuals into action—actions that leave a rabbi beaten in New York City, Asian-American women shot in Atlanta, and cops ambushed all around our country.
Kato Crews
Kato Crews is nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Like Bjelkengren, Crews was unable to explain a basic legal term. This time, it was explaining what a Brady motion is.
Q: "Do you know what a Brady motion is?"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 22, 2023
Judge Kato Crews, Biden's nominee for a federal district court: "It's not coming to mind at the moment"pic.twitter.com/XaqcqmCAXT
Michael Delaney
Michael Delaney is nominated to the First Circuit. RNLA previously wrote:
Delaney's role in the public naming of an underage sexual assault victim while representing her school in a civil suit is embarrassing for Democrats. . .
The testimony of Republican members of the Committee against Delaney's nomination provided an important defense for victims' rights, and forced Delaney to answer for his hardball tactics—he didn't do a very good job.
Delaney's involvement in the case is so problematic that some Democrats are actually considering a "no" vote on his nomination.
Natasha Merle
Like Choudhury, Natasha Merle is nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Merle has expressed controversial views on a variety of topics. Fox News highlighted:
During an episode of "The Breach" podcast immediately following the 2017 Charlottesville car-ramming attack, Merle criticized Republicans who denounced racism at the now-infamous Unite the Right rally but continue to support what she considers racist policies. . .
"You know, it’s inconsistent to denounce White supremacy but not repudiate voter ID laws, to not repudiate the Muslim ban, to not repudiate ‘the wall,’" she continued. "These are all things that support and are grounded in White supremacy. The voter ID bills disproportionately impact Black and Brown voters. They disproportionately prevent Black and Latino voters from voting. So you cannot say you are not for White supremacy and at the same time be for disenfranchising Black and Latino voters."
Julie Rikelman
Julie Rikelman is nominated to the First Circuit like Delaney. Rikelman is a well-known abortion rights activist. It's safe to assume that this was done in response to the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which overturned Roe v. Wade and its progeny. Carrie Severino wrote:
Biden could not have nominated a litigator more central to the cause of advancing judicial activism on abortion than Rikelman. In fact, she argued the last two abortion cases that made their way to the Supreme Court: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo (2020). According to the dark-money group Alliance for Justice, she was intimately involved in “all key aspects” of Dobbs. Biden’s choice is not tantamount to nominating Harry Blackmun, the justice who wrote the decision in Roe v. Wade, to a lower court. It is more like nominating Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued for the prevailing side in Roe.
After the Court handed down its decision overruling Roe in Dobbs, Rikelman railed, “I can’t emphasize enough what a cataclysmic change this will be, how much chaos we will see in the coming days and months.” She called the decision’s impact “swift and severe” and added that “we are on the verge of what may be the biggest public health crisis that we have seen in decades.”
This is just a sampling of the problematic nominees that the Biden Administration has nominated to the federal judiciary.
We applaud the Senate Republicans who have come forward to voice their opposition to the Democrats' scheme to replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee. We urge them and the rest of the Republican caucus to remain firm in the face of Democrat attacks on the rules of the Senate and the American judicial system.