In response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s approval of 17 of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, including a number of controversial nominees, PFAW Executive Vice President Marge Baker issued the following statement:

“Under Senator Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been far more interested in rushing President Trump’s nominees along to the senate floor than in fully evaluating their fitness for office. Today’s vote is a perfect example. Senator Grassley refused to allow new senators on the committee the chance to question controversial nominees—including one, Thomas Farr, who seems to have lied under oath to the committee during his first appearance—and he continues to break his promise to honor the blue slip process.

“Thomas Farr is exhibit A for the kind of unfit nominees that Senate Republicans seem intent on rubber stamping to lifetime seats on the federal bench. Farr has built a career on his opposition to voting rights. He defended the North Carolina voter suppression law that the 4th Circuit said ‘[targeted] African Americans with almost surgical precision.’ He even joined up with Jesse Helms during the campaign in which Helms publicly thanked the KKK for its support, and he worked for Helms throughout his despicable, race baiting campaign against Harvey Gantt.

“At the same time, Republicans rushed once again to support the nomination of Eric Drieband to lead the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Drieband has spent his career defending corporations accused of employment discrimination and throughout his life he’s shown a dangerous opposition or indifference to issues that are at the heart of the Civil Rights Division’s mission

“Some Republicans have expressed discomfort with President Trump’s blatant and unapologetic racism, but as long as they continue to enable his bigoted agenda and rubberstamp his dangerous nominees, they’re complicit in his deeply un-American record of destruction.”

People For the American Way is a progressive advocacy organization founded to fight right-wing extremism and defend constitutional values including free expression, religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and the right to meaningfully participate in our democracy.

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