McConnell and Trump Are Filling Our Courts With Judges With Awful Records On Voting Rights

The most far-reaching legacy of the Trump presidency will be his success working with the Republican majority-controlled Senate in confirming large numbers of extremist right-wing federal judges, many of whom will be serving on the bench for the next 30 years or more. 

Two and a half years into his presidency, Donald Trump has filled up federal courts at all levels with judges who have “appalling” records of enabling voter suppression, and it’s part of a broader effort to weaken minorities’ voting rights nationwide, the NAACP charges in a new report.

The report, Trump’s Judicial Playbook: Weaponizing The Bench To Suppress The Vote, looks at nine of Trump’s judicial nominees with glaring records on voting rights. The NAACP opposed all of them when they came up for Senate confirmation votes, but only one, Thomas Farr, who engaged in voter suppression, did not get confirmed.

If you care about the right to vote, you need to care about our courts.  Trump and the Republican Party are filling the federal bench with judges who have specifically encouraged voter suppression.  It's part of a broader effort to weaken minorities' voting rights nationwide.

Brett Kavanaugh, who in his first term on the court joined the ruling that blessed extreme partisan gerrymandering, would have allowed a citizenship question to be added to the Census, and would have reconsidered a ruling invalidating state legislative districts as racially gerrymandered.

Kyle Duncan, now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, previously represented North Carolina in its defense of its sweeping voter suppression law that included a strict voter ID requirement, eliminated same-day voter registration and barred out-of-precinct voting.

Andrew Brasher, now a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, previously filed a brief in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013 that resulted in the Supreme Court gutting a core provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“In 2 ½ years, President Donald Trump has appointed an alarming number of nominees with appalling records of enabling or defending voter suppression,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP President and CEO.” This is no accident, and the pattern is devastating. Undermining voting rights is now a qualification for nomination to the federal bench. This administration is weaponizing the federal judiciary to restrict the vote.

The judges highlighted by the NAACP are now on federal courts at every level, from the Supreme Court to appeals courts, which have the final say on the vast majority of federal court cases, to district courts, where voting rights cases are first filed. Some of these judges are incredibly young, too, meaning they will be on the bench for decades.

Eric Murphy, for one, is 39. Now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, he previously defended Ohio’s notorious voter purge law before the Supreme Court in 2018, arguing that the state should be able to drop people from its voter rolls if they don’t vote for six years and don’t respond to a postcard asking them to confirm their address.

Read the report here.

Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-judges-voting-rights-naacp_n_5d2e00e7e4b085eda5a2b292?1u