Judicial Nominations

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now, on one final matter, yesterday, President Biden and the Senate Democratic leader took time to boast about their judicial confirmations. There was something interesting, strange, and telling about their statements. Both the President and the Democratic leader focused their comments overwhelmingly on identity politics and demographic box-checking.

The President's statement spent literally one part of one sentence paying lip service to the question of legal qualifications. The remaining five paragraphs were devoted solely to these new judges' demographic characteristics. It was really quite bizarre.

President Biden informed the American people that a particular District Court in Puerto Rico will now have its first judge who is not heterosexual. He pointed out that men have been a small minority of his judicial nominees; that certain percentages of his nominees fit into certain demographic categories. He went on and on and on like this.

Most Americans want our country to keep moving forward in a direction where people's physical characteristics do not define us. Do you know what share of Americans believe race or ethnicity should be a major factor in university admissions? Seven percent. Do you know what percentage believe that gender should be a major factor in university admissions? Four percent.

But when these Democrats talk about our sacred legal system, they sound like the HR department at some liberal university.

The White House statements singled out three judges by name. In all three cases, the President belabored some aspect of the judge's identity. In zero--zero--of the three cases did the President have anything to say about their knowledge, intellect, or professional distinction.

It is offensive to all Americans who have a President seeming to view our judiciary as some kind of crude sociological math problem. This is just the kind of thing our Constitution cuts against.

Ironically, when it came to how these new judges actually think, both the President and the Democratic leader went out of their way to celebrate the lack of diversity in their thinking. They bragged about their coordinated and deliberate effort to stuff the judiciary with an unprecedented volume of former criminal defense attorneys.

Democrats have long said they want judges to have empathy. Well, that is good news if you happen to be the party for whom the judge has a special bias; not so good, however, if you are the other party and you are looking for a fair trial.

Now, Democrats are helpfully telling us whom they want judges to empathize with: accused criminals, not innocent victims.

Now, nobody is saying we shouldn't have any public defenders on the bench. But even the New York Times admits the Democrats' sweeping effort to tilt the playing field in one direction is ``a sea change in the world of judicial nominations.''

When Republicans held the Presidency and the Senate, we spent 4 years confirming staggeringly qualified and incredibly brilliant men and women to the courts, from widely diverse professional and educational credentials.

Back then, even the very liberal outlet Vox.com reported:

Based solely on objective legal credentials--

Objective legal credentials-- the average . . . appointee has a far more impressive resume than any past president's nominees.

That was then. So where are we? These days, things are different. To name just one example, significantly smaller shares of this President's nominees have attained prestigious clerkships at the Supreme Court or the appellate level.

To name another example, one person President Biden has put up for a lifetime appointment could not even tell the Judiciary Committee what is in article II or article V of the Constitution.

Look, our courts uphold the rule of law and protect our citizens' rights. The American people deserve a judiciary that contains the smartest, most formidable, and most qualified legal all-stars in our country. And they deserve a President who takes this seriously.

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