Marvin Quattlebaum is a Trump judicial nominee… pretty simple, right? Well according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has decided that he’s not the right person for the job because… well… he’s white.
“The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selections for the federal judiciary. Quattlebaum replaces not one, but two scuttled Obama nominees who were African American.”
“As of February 14th, 83 percent of the President Trump’s confirmed nominees were male, 92 percent were white. That represents the lowest share of non-white candidates in three decades. It’s long past time that the judiciary starts looking a lot more like the America it represents. Having a diversity of views and experiences on the federal bench is necessary for the equal administration of justice.”
Sen. Tim Scott, also a Republican serving South Carolina and the GOP’s sole black senator, tweeted, “Perhaps Senate Democrats should be more worried about the lack of diversity on their own staffs than attacking an extremely well-qualified judicial nominee from the great state of South Carolina.”
Perhaps Senate Democrats should be more worried about the lack of diversity on their own staffs than attacking an extremely well-qualified judicial nominee from the great state of South Carolina. https://t.co/unrR7Cz7Mp
— Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) March 1, 2018
As reported by Washington Examiner:
First, it is morally wrong to deny a person a job because of his skin color. You can argue that Republican senators did the same to the President Barack Obama-appointed African-American nominees, but that relies on suspicion and theory — they were probably rejected for reasons of political partisanship. The senator from New York, on the other hand, is saying outright that he will not vote for Quattlebaum’s nomination because he is white.
Secondly, please. This isn’t about diversity. This is politics.
Lastly, Schumer’s speech is humorous considering he is the minority leader of a governing body that is overwhelmingly white and male. There are currently only 22 female senators, 17 Democratic and five Republican. We started this year with only 21, but Sen. Al Franken’s exit opened the door for Minnesota’s former lieutenant governor, Tina Smith, to take his seat.