Greene County Democrat

Tag: Sen. Dick Durbin

  • Newswire: Judge Katanji Brown Jackson answers questions about her religion, sentencing habits, and dark money during day 2 of the SCOTUS confirmation hearing

    Judge Katanji Brown Jackson

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Religious beliefs, child porn, dark money, and expanding the court were a big part of day 2 of the historic Senate confirmation hearings of D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as she seeks to become the first African American woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
    The political posturing, unorthodox questioning, and even the egregious suggestion that Judge Jackson is soft on crime, reached even lower when Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina whined about his personal choice, Judge Michelle Childs, before storming out of the hallowed halls of the Hart Senate Building on Capitol Hill.
    
“In your nomination, did you notice people from the left were pretty much cheering you on?” Sen. Graham asked Judge Jackson.“A lot of people were cheering me on,” Jackson responded.
    
Sen. Graham then claimed that progressive groups and others led an effort to disqualify Judge Childs. He claimed individuals in those alleged groups called Judge Childs a “union-busting unreliable Republican in disguise.”
    
Unnerved, Judge Jackson told the senator that she wasn’t aware of that because, as a sitting judge, she’s remained focused on cases before her.
    
After an exchange with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Graham stormed out of the room.
    
Judge Jackson also withstood criticism from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who accused the judge of letting child porn offenders off the hook.
    
“As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth,” Judge Jackson remarked. “These are some of the most difficult cases that a judge has to deal with because we’re talking about pictures of sex abuse of children.
    
She continued: “We’re talking about graphic descriptions that judges have to read and consider when they decide how to sentence in these cases, and there’s a statute that tells judges what they’re supposed to do.”
    
Perhaps throwing the question back at Sen. Hawley, Judge Jackson reminded everyone that federal sentencing guidelines are established by Congress. “I’m imposing … constraints because I understand how significant, how damaging, how horrible this crime is,” Judge Jackson demanded.

    When Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked whether Judge Jackson would favor expanding the court from the current nine justices, she demurred. “Respectfully, senator, other nominees to the Supreme Court have responded as I will, which is that it is a policy question for Congress,” Judge Jackson stated.“I am so committed to staying in my lane of the system.”
    
Sen. Grassley persisted, asking if the Supreme Court has been bought and paid for by “dark money.” “Senator, I don’t have any reason to believe that that’s the case,” Judge Jackson replied.
    
Earlier, Sen. Graham pressed Judge Jackson about her religious beliefs. “What faith are you, by the way?” Graham railed. “Could you fairly judge a Catholic?” “How important is your faith to you?” he continued. “On a scale of one to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion?”
    
Judge Jackson asserted that she identifies as a nondenominational Protestant Christian.
She insisted that her faith counts as very important but noted that there’s no religious test to confirmation under the U.S. Constitution.
    
“I am reluctant to talk about my faith in this way,” Judge Jackson pushed back. “I want to be mindful of the need for the public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views.”
    
During the afternoon portion of the hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) attempted to bring decorum, asking Judge Jackson about the significance of her nomination.
Judge Jackson offered that her appointment and having diversity on the bench allows the opportunity for role models.
    
“I have received so many notes and letters and photos from little girls around the country who tell me that they are so excited for this opportunity,” Judge Jackson stated. “Because I am a woman, a Black woman, all of those things, people have said, have been really meaningful to them.”

  • Newswire: Supreme Court’s Alabama ruling sparks alarm over voting rights

    Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL7) comments on Supreme Court decision
    By Lisa Mascaro and Farnoush Amiri, Associated Press

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision to halt efforts to create a second mostly Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election sparked fresh warnings Tuesday that the court is becoming too politicized, eroding the Voting Rights Act and reviving the need for Congress to intervene.
    The Supreme Court’s conservative majority put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts to increase Black voting power. Civil rights groups had argued that the state, with its “sordid record” of racial discrimination, drew new maps by “packing” Black voters into one single district and “cracking” Black voters from other districts in ways that dilute their electoral power. Black voters are 26% of Alabama’s electorate.

    In its 5-4 decision late Monday, the Supreme Court said it would review the case in full, a future legal showdown in the months to come that voting advocates fear could further gut the protections in the landmark Civil Rights-era law.
    It’s “the latest example of the Supreme Court hacking away at the protections of the voting rights act of 1965,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “Congress must act. We must restore the Voting Rights Act.”
    The outcome all but ensures Alabama will continue to send mostly white Republicans to Washington after this fall’s midterm elections and applies new pressure on Congress to shore up voter protections after a broader elections bill collapsed last month. And the decision shows the growing power of the high court’s conservative majority as President Joe Biden is under his own pressures to name a liberal nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
    Rep. Terri Sewell, the only Black representative from Alabama, said the court’s decision underscores the need for Congress to pass her bill, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, to update and ensure the law’s historic protections.
    “Black Alabamians deserve nothing less,” Sewell said in a statement.
    The case out of Alabama is one of the most important legal tests of the new congressional maps stemming from the 2020 census count. It comes in the aftermath of court decisions that have widely been viewed as chiseling away at race-based protections of the Voting Rights Act.
    Alabama and other states with a known history of voting rights violations were no longer under federal oversight, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department for changes to their election practices after the court, in its 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, struck down the bill’s formula as outdated.
    As states nationwide adjust their congressional districts to fit population and demographic data, Alabama’s Republican-led Legislature drew up new maps last fall that were immediately challenged by civil rights groups on behalf of Black voters in the state.
    Late last month, a three-judge lower court, which includes two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, had ruled that the state had probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters. This finding was rooted, in part, in the fact that the state did not create a second district in which Black voters made up a majority, or close to it.
    Given that more than one person in four in Alabama is Black, the plaintiffs had argued the single Black district is far less than one person, one vote.
    “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” the three-judge panel wrote in the 225-page ruling.
    The lower court gave the Alabama legislature until Friday to come up with a remedial plan.

    Late Monday, the Supreme Court, after an appeal from Alabama, issued a stay. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, part of the conservative majority, said the lower court’s order for a new map came too close to the 2022 election.
    Chief Justice John Roberts joined his three more liberal colleagues in dissent.
    “It’s just a really disturbing ruling,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a member of the Judiciary Committee, who called the Supreme Court’s decision “a setback to racial equity, to ideals of one person, one vote.”
    Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the decision “hits at the guts of voting rights.” She told The Associated Press: “We’re afraid of what will happen from Alabama to Texas to Florida and even to the great state of Ohio.”
    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the court decision exposes the need for Congress to legislate to protect voting rights. The erosion of those rights is “exactly what the Voting Rights Act is in place to prevent.”
    Critics went beyond assailing the decision at hand to assert that the court has become political.
    “I know the court likes to say it’s not partisan, that it’s apolitical, but this seems to be a very political decision,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., tweeted that the court majority has “zero legitimacy.”

    Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., tweeted that the court’s action was “Jim Crow 2.0.”
    Alabama Republicans welcomed the court’s decision. “It is great news,” said Rep. Mo Brooks who is running for the GOP nomination for Senate. He called the lower court ruling an effort to “usurp” the decisions made by the state’s legislature.
    The justices will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the voting rights law, a case that could call into question “decades of this Court’s precedent” about Section 2 of the act, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent. Section 2 prohibits racial and other discrimination in voting procedures.
    Voting advocates see the arguments ahead as a showdown over voting rights they say are being slowly but methodically altered by the Roberts court.
    The Supreme Court in the Shelby decision did away with the preclearance formula under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And last summer, the conservative majority in Bronvich vs. the Democratic National Committee upheld voting limits in an Arizona case concerning early ballots that a lower court had found discriminatory under Section 2.
    With the Alabama case, the court is wading further into Section 2 limits over redistricting maps.
    Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Chris England, who is a member of the Alabama Legislature from Tuscaloosa, said he fears the Supreme Court’s action will reverberate and embolden other GOP-controlled states.
    “If this was the epicenter of the earthquake, the tremors are going to be felt in state legislatures, city councils and county commissions — all of which are currently going through some form of redistricting right now,” said England.