June 19, 2019 | Townhall
ACRU Policy Board member and senior fellow Ken Blackwell
If hypocrisy equals people, Democrats in Washington are China. The latest example of such bold duplicity by the Democratic Party is the secret “A-list” of potential Supreme Court (SCOTUS) judges Democrats refuse to reveal while they turn blue on Capitol Hill screaming for more transparency from the Trump administration.
Democrat leaders and activists working for Alliance for Justice are keeping their SCOTUS list under tight lock and key. Why? What do Democrats want to hide? Perhaps it’s the fact that this list of potential Justices for SCOTUS contains the names of the most liberal, activist judges in the land? Maybe it’s because this secret list of potential Justices would turn off moderate Democrat voters? If not, why hide the names from the public?
President Trump openly campaigned on the need for more conservative judges to serve on the nation’s federal courts and the SCOTUS. The President never hid his intentions—he boldly embraced the issue. In fact, President Trump hosts a list of potential Supreme Court nominees on the White House website. If you want to check the names of people the President hopes to appoint to SCOTUS, it’s right there for you to see. Also, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has been entirely forthcoming about discussing one of his top priorities—to work with the President to appoint, solid, conservative judges to federal courts in every district and region of the country.
Sens. Durbin, Schumer, Blumenthal, Booker and many other liberal town criers in Washington, DC miss no opportunity to malign the Trump administration for its allegedly clandestine acts. How much longer are they going to whine about imaginary backroom shenanigans with the Russians? Yet, Democrats are secretly building lists of judicial nominees—dubbed “Building the Bench” and keeping the names hidden from the public.
It’s clear the Democrats are not happy with the present makeup of the SCOTUS. This is why we are hearing from many Democrats running for President how we need to increase the number of people serving on SCOTUS. If Democrats can successfully add to the number of high court seats in the Judicial Branch, we now know they have a secret plan and unidentified people they want to stack into the court.
Such dishonesty raises serious questions.
Who is coordinating with candidates for the 2020 presidential race to make this dark, court-packing plan a reality? We know Alliance for Justice already has its grubby fingers in this mud pie, but which candidates running for the White House in 202 are embracing this plan? The press needs to ask anyone running for president in 2020 if they support a secret idea to stack the SCOTUS with liberal judges.
Who is funding this political operation? One would assume a project of this scale requires resources and as much as they would like us to believe, Democrats don’t work for free. Someone has to be footing the bill to rack and stack SCOTUS—who is it? With some investigation, we’d likely see an assortment of dark money, liberal PACs and donors involved. The use of interest groups and dark money PACs is particularly hypocritical, considering how Democrats routinely rail against such activity while actively engaging the very tactics they decry.
Will Democrat candidates be questioned in the coming presidential debates regarding their party’s breach of trust and transparency? Numerous debates are scheduled, and one would hope a few debate moderators would have enough backbone to press presidential candidates regarding the secret list of SCOTUS nominees and efforts to hide these names from public view.
When it comes to selecting people to serve on the nation’s highest court or federal district courts around the country, secret lists, deals, and backdoor maneuvers to hide nominees or political intentions undermine our judicial system and America’s faith in political leaders. If Democrats are genuinely proud of who they are and what their party stands for, they should be honest and open about who they want to serve in government. Anything less wreaks of dishonesty and should spark distrust among voters.