novaBBS - alt.law-enforcement - Marc Thiessen - Biden blocked the first Black woman from the Supreme Court

Opinion: Biden blocked the first Black woman from the Supreme Court
Image without a caption
By Marc A. Thiessen
Columnist
February 1, 2022 at 2:13 p.m. EST
California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown speaks in a San
Francisco courtroom on May 24, 2005. Brown, a Republican, was nominated
by President George W. Bush in 2003 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit. (Paul Sakuma/AP)

President Biden wants credit for nominating the first Black woman to the
Supreme Court. But here is the shameful irony: As a senator, Biden
warned President George W. Bush that if he nominated the first Black
woman to serve on the Supreme Court, he would filibuster and kill her
nomination.
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The story begins in 2003, when Bush nominated Judge Janice Rogers Brown
to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is considered the country’s second-most
important court, and has produced more Supreme Court justices than any
other federal court. Brown was immediately hailed as a potential Supreme
Court nominee. She was highly qualified, having served for seven years
as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court — the first
Black woman to do so. She was the daughter and granddaughter of
sharecroppers, and grew up in rural Alabama during the dark days of
segregation, when her family refused to enter restaurants or theaters
with separate entrances for Black customers. She rose from poverty and
put herself through college and UCLA law school as a working single
mother. She was a self-made African American legal star. But she was an
outspoken conservative — so Biden set out to destroy her.

Biden and his fellow Democrats filibustered her nomination, along with
several other Bush circuit court nominees, all of whom had majority
support in the Senate. Columnist Robert Novak called it “the first
full-scale effort in American history to prevent a president from
picking the federal judges he wants.” Democrats argued that she was out
of the legal mainstream, but Republicans responded that she had written
more majority opinions than any other justice on the California Supreme
Court — and she was reelected with 76 percent of the vote, the highest
percentage of all the justices on the ballot.
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When Democrats derailed her nomination, Bush renominated her in 2005.
Brown was eventually confirmed by a vote of 56 to 43 — after Democrats
released her and several other Bush nominees in exchange for Republican
agreement not to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominations.
Biden voted a second time against her nomination. He never explained
why, if Brown was so radical, Democrats let her through but killed 10
other Bush nominees.

Jennifer Rubin: Biden’s critics are clueless about his pledge to put a
Black woman on the Supreme Court

The following month, when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her
retirement, Brown was on Bush’s shortlist to replace her. She would have
been the first Black woman ever nominated to serve as an associate
justice of the Supreme Court. But Biden appeared on CBS’s “Face the
Nation” to warn that if Bush nominated Brown, she would face a
filibuster. “I can assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult
fight and she probably would be filibustered,” Biden said. Asked by
moderator John Roberts “Wasn’t she just confirmed?,” Biden replied that
the Supreme Court is a “totally different ballgame” because “a circuit
court judge is bound by stare decisis. They don’t get to make new law.”
Editorial Board

What Biden threatened was unprecedented. There has never been a
successful filibuster of a nominee for associate justice in the history
of the republic. Biden wanted to make a Black woman the first in history
to have her nomination killed by filibuster. Bush eventually nominated
Samuel A. Alito Jr.
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Today, Biden calls the filibuster a “relic of the Jim Crow era.” But he
threatened to use that relic as a tool to keep a Black woman who
actually lived under Jim Crow off the highest court in the land. The
irony is that now he wants to get rid of the filibuster, and claim
credit for putting the first Black woman on the court.

There were many conservatives on Bush’s shortlist whose legal philosophy
Biden opposed. But Biden only promised to filibuster the one Black
woman. Why? Perhaps a clue lies in another confirmation fight that Biden
helped wage. In 2001, Democrats blocked the nomination of Miguel Estrada
to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. According to
internal strategy memos obtained by the Wall Street Journal, they
targeted Estrada at the request of liberal interest groups who said
Estrada was “especially dangerous” because “he is Latino, and the White
House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.” They
did not want Republicans to put the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court.
So, Biden and his fellow Democrats killed Estrada’s nomination — the
first appeals court nominee in history to be successfully filibustered.
It paid off when President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor as the
first Hispanic justice.

The Ranking Committee: The 11 likeliest people to get Biden’s Supreme
Court nomination

Democrats’ commitment to diversity is a ruse. Biden was willing to
destroy the careers of an accomplished Latino lawyer and a respected
Black female judge, and stop Republicans from putting either on the
Supreme Court. For Democrats, it’s all about identity politics. Indeed,
Biden might not have become president had he not made the pledge to
nominate a Black woman. That promise helped secure the endorsement of
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — which won Biden the South Carolina
primary and rescued his faltering campaign.

So, when Biden tries to bask in the glory of his historic nomination,
remember Janice Rogers Brown — the Black woman who does not sit on the
Supreme Court today because of Biden’s disgraceful obstruction.
Image without a caption
Opinion by Marc Thiessen

Marc Thiessen writes a twice-weekly column for The Post on foreign and
domestic policy. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Twitter
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