A Newsweek opinion. Hardly a bastion of conservative thought:
Democrats invoke diversity and accuse their political opponents of racism so often it's become a source of
mockery from across the political spectrum. But leading
Democrats' real record on the issues of race and gender paints a different picture. Take just one example that's come to the forefront of the news due to
Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer's announced retirement: the federal courts.
The leading (white) men in charge of the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process—President
Joe Biden,
Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Judiciary Committee chairman
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Judiciary Committee member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)—all talk a big game on the importance of diversity in the federal courts.
"Now, with his new vacancy on the court, President Biden will have an opportunity to make history by nominating the first-ever Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court," Schumer
said. "Let's face the reality here," Durbin
added. "We had 115 Supreme Court Justices in the history of the United States. 108 have been white men. I really think there is room for us to consider not only women, but women of color to fill these vacancies."
But what are these Democrats' real records when it comes to supporting female and minority judicial nominees? In 2003, and for the following two years, Senate Democrats—including then-senator Joe Biden—filibustered the nomination of California Supreme Court justice Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit, the second-highest court in the land and a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. There was much talk at the time among close observers of the courts that Brown would likely be the first Black female Supreme Court justice. But liberals
smeared Brown even before she was confirmed to the California Supreme Court, inexplicably calling the first Black woman nominated to the position "unqualified" to serve. And, despite her sterling credentials, they continued to trash her after President
George W. Bush nominated her to the appellate court.
Democrats' media allies parroted baseless liberal talking points with the aim of destroying an accomplished Black woman's reputation, all because she was nominated by a Republican president and could've become the first Black female Supreme Court Justice. State-sponsored media
recycled left-wing salvos against Brown. And during Brown's 2003 committee hearing, both Schumer and Durbin
repeated the smear that she was unqualified.
Then-senator Joe Biden passionately
filibustered Brown's nomination—and even praised Sen. Robert Byrd, a noted former Klansman, while doing so. Biden called this filibuster the most important vote of his career. Praising a Klansman while using what Democrats now
call a "Jim Crow relic" to shut down the nomination of a Black woman? Nothing more perfectly sums up Democrats' record on race and the federal courts.
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