Right now, Donald Trump and his acolytes are “flooding the zone” with various illegal, unconstitutional and unethical orders. If you’re somebody who cares about individual rights and the rule of law, you’re probably trying to keep your head above water.
That applies to just about everybody I know, love and work with. It’s very tempting to keep responding to the outrage du jour. It’s also a recipe for exhaustion.
What I really hope we can do in this new environment is focus on areas where we know how to win and how to make a difference. Fortunately, there are a number of them, including federal judicial nominations.
The critical role of judges is already in the spotlight in Trump’s first weeks in office. Trump’s reckless orders to do things like freeze federal spending, gut the civil service, end birthright citizenship — and wreck people’s lives — instantly ended up in federal court.
This is exactly what happened with his first-term travel ban, too, and it proves again that judges will be a deciding factor in whether Trump’s slash-and-burn agenda succeeds or fails.
That means Democrats have to do everything they can to stop the most egregious nominees from getting confirmed, hold senators accountable if they vote for unacceptable nominees and make it as difficult as possible for Donald Trump to inflict more damage on the federal judiciary.
The progressive advocacy community that’s built around federal judicial nominations is seasoned and strong. In Trump’s first term, advocates helped to block several nominees who would have brought appalling records to the bench.
Maybe you remember these people:
- Jeffrey Mateer in the Eastern District of Texas, who referred to transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan” and who spoke at a conference organized by a right-wing activist who called for gay people to be executed.
- Ryan Bounds in the 9th Circuit, whose history of race-baiting writing included gems like an accusation that diversity advocates at Stanford believe the “opponent is the white male and his coterie of meanspirited lackeys: ‘oreos,’ ‘twinkies,’ ‘coconuts,’ and the like.”
- Thomas Farr in the Eastern District of North Carolina, an attorney who defended a racist voter suppression law that was struck down in the 4th Circuit by judges noting that its provisions “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
- Brett Talley in the Middle District of Alabama, a lawyer who had never once tried a case in court and who appeared to defend the early Ku Klux Klan in online posts. He also had a hobby of ghost hunting, behavior that ordinarily would seem odd for a potential federal judge but actually seems insignificant compared to his other issues.
- And more: Gordon Giampietro in Wisconsin, John O’Connor in Oklahoma and Matthew Petersen in D.C.
I wish we could say that every Trump judicial nominee with extremist views — or a lack of qualifications — was defeated. Many weren’t, and they won’t be this time.
But every single one counts. And every fight counts. There should be no easy path to packing our courts with judges who do not believe that the laws and our Constitution protect all of us.
Trump has more than 50 lifetime judicial vacancies to fill. They include four critically important circuit-level seats. There will be more, and we might even see Supreme Court vacancies if far-right justices decide to step down.
Senate Democrats already know how high the stakes are for judges. Under President Biden, they confirmed 235 outstanding individuals to lifetime seats on the federal bench.
Now, coming into this new Trump administration, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stresses that these judges will be “one of our strongest — if not our strongest — barrier against what he [Trump] does.”
That’s true, and Democrats should be proud of the high standards they upheld for judges in Biden’s term. Those standards should not slip one iota. Democratic senators need to be reminded of that when they say they hope to “work with” the White House on judicial nominees. They must insist on filling vacancies with judges and justices with a demonstrated commitment to justice for all.
Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.
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