President Biden’s team has gone out of its way to point out that they wanted lawyers with public defender and civil rights experience, which should be applauded as the federal bench has a poor track record of seating them because the Senate has a horrible record of appointing them. Colorado’s senior Senator Bennet has put forward just one name and it’s of a corporate attorney who works for corporate law firm and lobbying shop WilmerHale. That’s the last thing America needs when the federal bench is already stuffed full of corporate attorneys.
Much to Biden’s credit his then not quite yet White House counsel Dana Remus had sent a letter out to the Senators on transition team letterhead explaining that the Biden administration was prioritizing civil rights lawyers and public defenders to correct a historic imbalance. You know, the cycle of rich white men who went to ivy league universities appointing and lobbying for attorneys that match those those same exact qualities. And that’s apparently how we ended up with this one name. Senator Bennet has an advisory committee to give him suggestions for federal judgeships in his state and over 2/3 of it are, can guess what horribly underrepresented group they represent? If you guessed white men who attended ivy league schools you’d be right.
Senator Bennet’s office is currently giving out the standard milquetoast response to such inquiries along with pretending this ‘unfair’ scrutiny is the work of nefarious dark money groups. Senator Bennet prefers his light money, where the wealthy don’t have to bribe him because he agrees with them. And then they donate to his campaign. But those legally aren’t bribes. Regina Rodriguez “is an incredibly qualified Latina candidate who would bring diversity to the federal bench,” a Bennet spokesperson said. “She also has a long track record of community service to Colorado’s children and working families.”
We finally have a President who is going to prioritize the type of lawyers that should be sitting on the federal bench. Unfortunately, there’s fifty Senators in our caucus and they haven’t announced any such pledges of their own. If you are a resident of Colorado it would be awesome if you could contact his office and register your disappointment and that poor federal judgeship choices are what can get a Senator primaried. Be polite, always be polite if you want their offices to take your concerns seriously. If you like old school communication, a written letter is much better than an email, which they pretty much uniformly ignore, and if you can endure the wait a phone call is also an effective method to let your Senator know what you think. You can always thank President Biden if you want to be an extra extra citizen.
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