Seven GOP senators vote to support Biden's judgeship nominations | Eastern NC Now

Seven Republican senators voted Tuesday to confirm the latest Democratic judge to a 15-year term on the D.C. Superior Court. That might not be surprising on a normal day, but this judicial nomination was the first chance Republicans had to show even a limp semblance of resistance to Democratic lawfare after the country was plunged into a constitutional crisis by Donald Trump’s kangaroo court conviction.

Some of the seven Republicans who lent a hand to the Biden administration are the usual suspects, like Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mitt Romney (R-Utah). Another, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), plays a conservative on TV but is a reliable vote for President Joe Biden’s judicial agenda. The final three — Tom Tillis (R-N.C.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) — have no excuse.

Republicans continue to support their own prosecution. It would be shocking, were it not so believable.

Here’s the crazy part: Amid the former president’s persecution, these seven Republicans gave a stamp of approval to the Democrats’ judicial agenda because they wanted to. Democrats didn’t even need the votes to confirm.

Since Trump’s conviction last week, Republicans have been paralyzed on what to do (if anything). Even those committed to action worry their power is limited and are afraid of overpromising and under-delivering, and thus far, no Republican senators have shown an appetite for the kind of parliamentary procedures necessary to grind day-to-day business to a halt.

In the action club, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) became the 11th Republican to sign a letter committing to voting against non-defense nominees and blocking increases in spending, but they’ll need broader conference support to impact the spending agenda and truly wreak havoc on business as usual.

To add to the frustration, it’s been fair game for more than half a century for the opposition party to try to block the White House’s judicial nominees during a presidential election year. Nicknamed the Thurmond Rule, the practice goes back to 1968. Even the low, low bar of not cooperating on judicial nominations and blocking spending increases is too high for Republican leadership, however, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaling his opposition.

Meanwhile, the Democrats march on. On Tuesday, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul indicted former Republican lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, along with Republican political operative Mike Roman, for “forgery” over their efforts to contest the 2020 election.

Reading the corporate media, you might be tempted to think the three men donned fake mustaches, dark sunglasses, and black fedoras to try to trick Congress into picking Trump as the winner. The reality is they worked on putting together a different slate of electors to vote should their lawsuit contesting the Wisconsin election succeed.

Democrats have accused them of organizing “fake electors” — and the phrase is plastered all over corporate media stories. The term, however, is made up. Before Democrats started prosecuting Republicans, the preferred phrase was “alternate slate of electors.” John F. Kennedy used the legal tactic successfully in 1960 by to contest Hawaii. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens referenced it in his 2000 dissent in Bush v. Gore. More recently, Democratic commentator Van Jones and Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig discussed it in their CNN op-ed, explaining how Democrats could legally contest the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania.

That doesn’t mean the strategy was the best; it simply means it wasn’t remotely beyond the pale. Now, it’s a crime, and just as the ridiculous phrase “pre-planned” saturated media coverage as Democratic reporters sought to explain away the Benghazi attack, “fake electors” is the it-phrase to describe anyone who worked to contest the 2020 election.

And questions are the new red line. “Donald Trump is threatening our democracy,” Biden tweeted last week. “First, he questioned our election system. Then, he questioned our judicial system.”

While some Democratic state officials continue to try to kick Trump off the ballot and other Democratic state officials continue to prosecute Republican operatives, D.C. Republicans continue to support their own prosecution. It would be shocking, were it not so believable.

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