Patty Murray gave a ringing endorsement for her, having urged President Biden to nominate Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Washington.
Q: “Judge, tell me what article V of the Constitution does?”
Biden judicial nominee: “Article V is not coming to mind at the moment.”
“How about article II?”
Nominee: “Neither is Article II”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 26, 2023
Unfortunately for all involved, Judge Bjelkengren doesn’t know much about the Constitution of the United States, embarrassing herself and her supporters before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It was a pathetic performance, although to be fair the judge had probably been told that the hearing was going to be pro forma, not a grilling. The Democrats are in charge of the Senate, after all, and Murray didn’t nominate Bjelkengren because she is a remarkable legal scholar. She did it because she is Black and liberal.
Don’t listen to me on this matter. Look at what Murray said in her own press release announcing the nomination:
Senator Murray has been a strong advocate for the confirmation of highly-qualified judicial nominees who reflect the diversity of communities in Washington state and America, pushing for greater professional diversity on the federal bench in particular. Since the start of this Congress, Senator Murray has secured the lifetime appointments of five highly qualified candidates as federal district court judges in Washington state.
Most recently, Senator Murray secured the confirmations of Tana Lin, Washington state’s first ever Asian American federal judge and a former public defender and civil rights lawyer; Lauren King, a tribal law expert who is serving as Washington state’s first ever Native American federal judge; John Chun, who will be the first Asian American man to serve as a federal judge in Washington state; David Estudillo, the son of Mexican immigrants and a former immigration attorney; and Kit Dimke who is serving in the Eastern District of Washington from the Spokane Courthouse. Senator Murray is currently pushing to confirm Salvador Mendoza Jr. to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose seat in the Eastern District Judge Bjelkengren is nominated to fill and who, as a child, worked as a farmworker and is the son of Mexican immigrants who worked as farm laborers, maids, and factory workers; and Tiffany Cartwright, a leading civil rights lawyer, both of whom advanced out the Senate Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support, as well as Jamal Whitehead, the Biden Administration’s first nominee with a disability to the federal bench, and Kymberly Evanson to the Western District of Washington, who have yet to receive a hearing.
It’s almost a parody of what a whiny white woman Senator would brag about, only it’s real. Let’s see: a Black woman, Asian American woman, a Native American, an Asian American man, a Mexican American, and a Mexican-American farmworker. She even throws in a disabled person to round things out.
To be clear, each of these people might be a fine candidate to be a judge, but if Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren’s performance in the Judiciary Committee is any indication, that would be pretty low on the list of priorities for Senator Murray.
It’s frustrating both because competence does matter for federal court judges (there are only 870 such judges in the entire country and they can have an enormous impact on how average people live), and it perpetuates the belief that minorities only climb up the ladder due to affirmative action.
Judge Clarence Thomas, among others, is proof enough that one can be Black and extraordinarily accomplished, yet the Left’s insistence on pushing unqualified people into important positions confirms in people’s minds that there are no such examples. This perpetuates racism rather than eliminates this.
A disabled judge? Why should I care? Did the people of Texas elect Governor Abbott because he is in a wheelchair? No. But Patty Murray nominates a person to a lifetime appointment as a judge because they have a disability.
It’s ridiculous. This doesn’t promote “equity,” the supposed goal of all these gymnastics. One person becoming a judge or not does nothing for a group of people; it benefits that one person. The only “equity” is symbolic.
Erasing the achievement gap between minorities and others would actually do something for the groups supposedly helped by affirmative action, but when it comes to education reform the liberals side with the teachers’ unions.
Murray set up her nominee to be humiliated. That helps nobody.
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