On International Women’s Day, Judiciary Committee Women Deserve Applause
This year’s International Women’s Day comes at a particularly crucial time. While there is increased national attention to the need to end sexual abuse, provide gender equality, ensure workers’ rights and voting rights and end discrimination against LGBTQ people, the Trump Administration’s judicial appointees threaten a return to the old order, to injustices that we thought were behind us, never to cross our paths again.
Among those standing in the way of the Administration’s dark vision for our future are the four women members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Mazie Hirono (HI) and Kamala Harris (CA), all of them Democrats.
As members of the committee tasked with evaluating the fitness of judicial nominees for lifetime seats on the federal bench, these women have taken their responsibility with the seriousness it deserves. At confirmation hearings they have been among the toughest inquisitors of extreme and unqualified nominees. They have asked the hard questions, refusing to let nominees squirm out of the uncomfortable position of accounting for their deeply flawed records.
Sen. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has repeatedly questioned nominees about critical legal protections for women. She grilled Fifth Circuit nominee Don Willett about a memo he wrote when he was an advisor to Governor George W. Bush, in which he “resist[ed] talk of ‘glass ceilings,’ pay equity (an allegation that some studies debunk), the need to place kids in the care of rented strangers, sexual discrimination/ harassment, and the need generally for better ‘working conditions’ for women (read: more government).” Feinstein repeatedly asked Willett if these were still his beliefs, and he repeatedly refused to answer.
Feinstein also has consistently stood up for reproductive rights. For example, she asked John Bush — who compared Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott — if he would follow Supreme Court precedent, and if he still believed Roe was a “national tragedy” and reminded him, forcefully, that “he is under oath.”
Sen. Harris, a new committee member who has served as Attorney General of California, also grilled Nielson, a nominee for U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. Harris was persistent in her questioning about Nielson’s actions while representing supporters of California’s Proposition 8, denying same-sex couples the right to marry. Nielson had called for an LGBTQ judge to recuse himself from the case. Harris drilled down into the erroneous basis of Nielson’s argument, reminding everyone that the same arguments were once used to claim that African-American judges, for example, could never sit on cases involving African-American parties. She was direct and unsparing in her criticism, pointing out that Nielson relied “on outdated science used to further stigmatize LGBTQ people as well as anti-LGBTQ arguments suggesting sexual orientation was a choice rather than an immutable characteristic.”
Sen. Hirono started her interview with Kurt Engelhardt, nominated for a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, with the following two questions:
“Since you became a legal adult have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors, or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?” And, “Have you ever faced discipline, or entered into a settlement related to this kind of conduct?’
Hirono, a lawyer and former Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, told Slate she would continue to make these the first two questions of nominees because “I want them to know that this is about to become normal.” She, along with Harris, was diligent in questioning nominee Kurt Engelhardt about his record of preventing sexual harassment cases from ever reaching a jury.
Meanwhile Minnesota’s Sen. Klobuchar, a former prosecutor, grilled Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on his devotion to originalism. She pointed out that an inflexibly literal reading of the Constitution and its repeated use of male pronouns for the President of the United States could lead an “originalist” to conclude that women had no right to aspire to the office, and demanded that Gorsuch clarify his views. While Gorsuch insisted he had no desire to take the country back to the 18th century, Klobuchar’s questioning made a strong point about the dangers of conservative “originalism” when carried to its logical conclusion.
These women are standing up for the integrity of our federal courts, which play an enormous role in the lives of women in this country. Federal courts determine whether women can access reproductive healthcare, equal educational and economic opportunities, remedies for sexual discrimination and harassment, and so much more.
The Judiciary Committee women are making their voices heard.
And that, tweeted Kamala Harris, is the point. “I say to all women and girls: own your voice and own your power. Carry it. Be proud of it. Always know that, whatever you’re thinking or you’re feeling, your voice is important and should be heard.”
