Last updated on December 1st, 2018 at 04:46 am
Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina handed Donald Trump a major defeat on Thursday, announcing that he will oppose the president’s controversial judicial nomination of Thomas Farr.
Farr was chosen by Trump to serve as a judge in North Carolina‘s Eastern District, but Sen. Scott’s opposition guarantees that he will not have the votes to be confirmed.
“This afternoon I concluded that I could not support Mr. Farr’s nomination,” Scott said in a statement, according to The State.
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Scott joins a united front of Democrats in the Senate as well as Republican Sen. Jeff Flake in opposing the nomination – enough “no” votes to effectively end Farr’s hopes of serving on the federal bench.
Republicans should be ashamed it was this close
While it’s good news that Sen. Scott did the right thing in opposing Farr’s nomination, the rest of the GOP should be ashamed that it came down to the wire.
After all, the Trump nominee has been a proud champion of racist voter suppression tactics.
As The New York Times pointed out on Thursday, Farr “defended a North Carolina voter identification law and a partisan gerrymander that a federal court said was drafted to suppress black votes ‘with surgical precision.'”
Before that, when Farr worked for the Senate campaign of Republican Jesse Helms, he was involved in targeting and suppressing African-American voters.
According to a 1991 Justice Department memo, “Farr was the primary coordinator of the 1984 ‘ballot security’ program conducted by the NCGOP and 1984 Helms for Senate Committee. He coordinated several ‘ballot security’ activities in 1984, including a postcard mailing to voters in predominantly black precincts which was designed to serve as a basis to challenge voters on election day.”
People like Thomas Farr shouldn’t even be considered for positions of such power. The fact that he was nearly confirmed speaks to how far backward the Republican Party has gone under Donald Trump.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
