That’s how far Republicans went trying to block a Biden judicial appointment.
Nowadays it’s a given that Republicans will oppose any Biden judicial appointee. It hasn’t always been that way; there used to be more Senate courtesy, but we’re now living in the era of hyper-partisan politics.
The Senate confirmed Mustafa Kasubhai (photo, left) to a federal district judge position in Oregon by a 51-44 vote, with no Republicans voting for him (read story here).
Mustafa spent many years working his way up the judicial ladder. After law school, he was in private practice for several years, then began his public service career on Oregon’s worker’s compensation board. Next he spent 17 years as a state circuit judge before becoming a federal magistrate judge (see story here).
But he’s Muslim, and was nominated by Biden, and Republicans don’t like him for both those reasons. So they searched for excuses to criticize him, and came up with bad poetry he wrote 30 years ago while a law student. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX 🤡) was so enamored with this “gotcha” that he read it aloud on the Senate floor (see story here).
Unimpressed, the Senate majority confirmed him without a single Democratic senator dissenting. He’s being hired to be a judge, not a poet; his legal skills are relevant, his poetry-writing skills are not.
But Judge Mustafa might do well to take away this bit of wisdom from his confirmation experience: Don’t quit his new day job to pursue his poetry dreams.