No centrist senator could possibly approve judicial nominee Nancy Abudu
Quin Hillyer
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It would be a great sign of decency and statesmanship if President Joe Biden would stop trying to jam through the Senate the judicial nominations of radical lawyer Nancy Abudu (and perhaps one or two others).
If Biden persists with Abudu especially, Democrats with the slightest pretense of moderation (for example, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Warner of Virginia, and a few more) will prove their “moderation” is fraudulent if they vote to confirm her.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday “held over” votes on Abudu’s nomination and those of seven others, and it deadlocked on two more. But the committee is set to soon move from a temporary 10-10 partisan divide to a full complement of 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans, so all 10 nominees are expected to be approved by the committee and sent to the full, 100-member Senate for consideration.
There are good reasons to be concerned about a number of these nominees, but Abudu provides the acid test of whether senators care about substance over partisanship. As I’ve written before, she is a radical’s radical, utterly unfit for the federal bench. She has served as a lead lawyer for the thoroughly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, which has suffered years of ethics problems while it slanders mainstream conservative groups. And she is a race-baiting crusader against almost every imaginable measure for voting integrity, even going so far as saying that keeping felons from voting is morally the same as slavery.
Naturally, the Republican National Lawyers Association is far from thrilled about most Biden judicial nominees and is outspoken in its concerns about several. Nevertheless, Abudu is one of only two nominees the RNLA has outright opposed, signaling that there is a difference between mere philosophical distastefulness and unacceptability.
In its letter to Judiciary Committee leaders of both parties, the RNLA wrote that “Ms. Abudu has shown that she is not capable of impartiality and that her radical views are outside even the progressive mainstream on these [voter integrity] issues,” and “when given the opportunity to comment on these matters, Abudu declined to be forthcoming with the members of the Committee.”
Abudu says supporters of basic voter identification requirements are pushing racist, Jim Crow-like policies. Manchin strongly supports voter ID. If he doesn’t think he is a Jim Crow racist, he should oppose Abudu. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) faces a potentially tough reelection challenge, and 74% of his constituents support voter ID. Does he really want to support a judicial nominee who effectively says 74% of Pennsylvanians are racist?
And again, this is just one reason, among many, that Abudu is unfit for a judgeship by either outlook or temperament.
Biden, meanwhile, keeps claiming to want to be a unifier, but he has shown not a single instance as president of trying to live up to this claim. It is a president’s prerogative to make judicial nominations in accord with his own principles, but a president looking for common ground would at least back off from someone as radical as Abudu.
Biden should withdraw her nomination. If he doesn’t, the Judiciary Committee should refuse to advance it — but it won’t. That’s why the decision will devolve upon the full Senate, with each member forced to decide between a partisan straitjacket and, on the other hand, a decent respect for the role of the judiciary as at least somewhat neutral arbiters of the law. Abudu doesn’t come close to meeting that test. Senators who vote to confirm her will ill-serve the judiciary, the country, and their oaths as stewards of the public trust.
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