ORLANDO (Legal Newsline) - There would already be a black female U.S. Supreme Court justice had President Joe Biden accepted the first one that a Republican president selected nearly 20 years ago, according to a Georgia congressman.
“If Joe Biden really wanted to have the first black female Supreme Court justice, he shouldn't have blocked the one that Bush proposed,” said Congressman Barry Loudermilk who represents the 11th congressional district of Georgia.
Loudermilk, who made the comments while participating in a panel discussion at CPAC last week, "Will Judges Do Their Job," was referencing then President George W. Bush’s 2003 nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Republican, according to media reports.
Norman, Whitaker, Bartos, Loudermilk
| Fairley/CPAC
“She was a Bush nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court and Biden effectively blocked it and threatened to filibuster because it was a Republican nominating a black woman but the real reason, as he was quoted, is that she was conservative and she would only rule based on the original intent of the U.S. Constitution and [the Democrats] didn’t want that.”
Biden announced his nomination of a black female to the U.S. Supreme Court last week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard graduate and a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Other speakers on the CPAC panel included South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman, and Pennsylvania real estate developer Jeff Bartos who is campaigning for election to the U.S. Senate, moderator Terry Schilling, executive director of American Principles Project, and former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker.
“What do we know about these individuals is that they are complete and utter idealogue radicals because, as you would expect, they are done with moderates,” Whitaker said. “They are done with any facade of fairness or a rule of law. They want to put ideologues and activists on the court because that's where they believe they are going to win future battles because they know the American people are not with them.”
Bartos said that Democrats are "much better at fighting ideological battles."
"We tend to roll over too quickly for perhaps tax cuts or for some other item that we're willing to compromise on," he said. "The future is these courts - 30, 40, and 50 years down the road when our children and grandchildren - are going to be living under their decisions. If President Biden's nominee to the court today is confirmed, she's 51 years old, she is going to be deciding cases for the next 40 years or more. This couldn't be more important."
Jackson is known for ruling against Trump in the House’s 2019 lawsuit seeking to enforce a subpoena against Trump's White House counsel Donald McGahn.
As previously reported, Jackson denied that Trump's advisors had a right to dismiss congressional subpoenas.
"What's been shocking about Biden's nominees is the fact that it's not being fought over in the Senate," Norman said. "They weaponized the judicial system but, more importantly, the Senate is not standing up to fight like the Democrats fought every limited nominee that Pres. Trump tried to put up. Also, what is shocking about this administration is their push for D.C. statehood. They are pushing to expand the Supreme Court just because of the nine members and six of them are conservative. So, it's been shocking that we're not fighting it. The conservatives are not fighting it. It's a sad day because they sure did fight with President Trump."