WASHINGTON (CN) — Five women with diverse professional backgrounds are slated to be confirmed as federal judges by the Senate, after the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Biden’s picks for the bench at a hearing on Wednesday.
The most controversial pick among Republicans is Biden’s choice for a seat on the Second Circuit, Myrna Pérez, who has spent 15 years as one of the top voting rights and election lawyers in the country.
“The right to vote keeps us free. It protects us from tyranny. It is preservative of all other rights,” she said at the hearing. “And as an advocate, I have been duty bound to ensure that the promises this constitution makes about being able to participate in your own self governance are actualized.”
Pérez is director of the Brennan Center for Justice, a role that concerns many Republicans who see her experience as an advocate as detrimental to her ability to be a fair and impartial judge.
Republicans on the committee repeatedly questioned Pérez on statements she had made regarding comments on voting laws, including an article in which she called voter ID laws one of the biggest voting rights rollbacks since the Jim Crow era.
“That's an extraordinary statement for someone who wants to be a federal judge,” said Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.
When asked about her views on landmark voting rights cases Brnovich v. DNC, Shelby County v. Holder, and other Supreme Court cases which she has made statements in opposition to, Pérez repeatedly deferred from answering, instead declaring that she would abide by the high court's precedent.
“You’ve criticized the precedents of the Supreme Court… in the harshest of terms, repeatedly,” Hawley said.
“I see your career as someone who has been an activist, and I believe a radical activist,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said. “You have waged litigation campaigns and opposed voter ID laws, you have opposed voter integrity laws, you have opposed prohibitions on ballot harvesting, you have advocated for felons being able to vote. I’m left with the very likely conclusion you would likewise be a radical activist on the bench.”
Pérez responded that if she were confirmed, she would be taking on a very different role.
“You are referencing work that I did as an advocate,” Pérez said. “Advocates and judges play a completely different role. And by accepting this nomination I am pledging to this body, to the American public, before my God that I would faithfully discharge my duties under the constitution which require me to put aside any personal policy view points I have.”
Frustrated by Pérez’s answers, Republican senators claimed that all of Biden’s picks thus far have dodged questions about particular cases and viewpoints and instead repeatedly refer to one word: precedent.
“Trump nominees came before this committee for four straight years… and refused to say whether cases, especially recent cases, were correctly decided,” said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, chair of the committee. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to my colleagues.”
If Pérez is confirmed, she would be the first Latina on the Second Circuit Court since Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Committee members also questioned Jia Cobb, a civil rights lawyer, and Florence Y. Pan, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge, who are both nominated to be U.S. district judges for D.C.
Sarah A.L. Merriam, a magistrate judge nominated to be a U.S. district judge for the District of Connecticut, and Karen McGlashan Williams, a magistrate nominated for a federal judgeship in the District of New Jersey, also appeared before the committee.
Senators also questioned Matthew G. Olson, who has been nominated to be assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division.
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