Mitch McConnell: Democrats Engaging in 'Demographic Box-Checking' with Judicial Nominees

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the Senate floor Wednesday that President Joe Biden and Democrats are engaging in ‘demographic box-checking” regarding their judicial nominees.

“Yesterday, President Biden and the Senate Democratic Leader took time to boast about their judicial confirmations. There was something interesting, strange, and telling about their statements,” the Senate Republican leader said. “Both the President and the Democratic Leader focused their comments overwhelmingly on identity politics and demographic box-checking.”

McConnell noted that Biden spent significantly more time on the nominees’ sexual and ethnic backgrounds than their education or experience. He said:

The President’s statement spent literally one part of one sentence paying lip service to the question of legal qualifications. The remaining five paragraphs were devoted solely to these new judges’ demographic characteristics. It was downright bizarre. President Biden informed the American people that a particular District Court in Puerto Rico will now have its first judge who is not heterosexual.

He pointed out that men have been a small minority of his judicial nominees… That certain percentages of his nominees fit into certain demographic categories…It went on and on like this.

Mr. President, most Americans want our country to keep moving forward in a direction where people’s physical characteristics do not define us.

“Do you know what share of Americans believe race or ethnicity should be a major factor in university admissions? It is 7%,” he added. “Do you know what percentage believe that gender should be? 4%.”

The Kentucky senator contended that Democrats want a homogenous background in nominating so many former criminal defense attorneys. He continued:

Ironically, when it came to how these new judges actually think, both the President and the Democratic Leader went out of their way to celebrate the lack of diversity. They bragged about their coordinated and deliberate effort to stuff the judiciary with an unprecedented volume of former criminal defense attorneys.

Democrats have long said they want judges to have empathy. I guess that’s good news if you happen to be the party for whom the judge has a special bias. Not so good if you’re the other party and you’re looking for a fair trial.

Now Democrats are helpfully telling us whom they want judges to empathize with: Accused criminals. Not innocent victims. Now, Mr. President, nobody is saying we shouldn’t have any public defenders on the bench.

Many of Biden’s nominees have received backlash over their policies or their lack of qualifications.

In December 2022, Breitbart News’s John Binder reported that South Carolina Circuit Court Judge DeAndrea G. Benjamin sentenced a convicted sex offender to just three years of probation after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

In January 2023, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) stumped Spokane County Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren when he asked basic questions about the U.S. Constitution.

McConnell noted that, under a Senate GOP majority and President Donald Trump, Vox wrote that the “average… appointee has a far more impressive resume than any past president’s nominees.”

He continued:

To name just one example, significantly smaller shares of this President’s nominees have attained prestigious clerkships at the Supreme Court or appellate level.

To name another example, one person President Biden has put up for a lifetime appointment could not even tell the Judiciary Committee what’s in Article II or Article V of the Constitution.

Look — our courts uphold the rule of law and protect our citizens’ rights. The American people deserve a judiciary that contains the smartest, most formidable, most qualified legal all-stars in the country.

“And they deserve a President who takes this seriously,” he added.