Commentary

Tillis: Confirming judges has “nothing to do with doing our jobs”

Thom TillisSometimes it is almost beyond belief that Thom Tillis serves on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. That same thought must’ve been running through the minds of a lot of his fellow senators yesterday afternoon when Tillis took to the Senate floor to block a bundle of federal court nominations who would have filled vacancies that are causing backups in the courts. Many of them passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously.

Doug Clark of the Greensboro News & Record reports:

“Tillis objected that the Senate shouldn’t be forced to do ‘things that have nothing to do with doing our jobs’ while action is needed on important matters like Zika, veterans, drug addiction and defense funding.

Which prompted Democrat Elizabeth Warren to question what part of the Constitution says that confirming judges isn’t the Senate’s job.

Warren was joined by fellow Democrats Chuck Schumer and Mazie Hirono in trying to break a logjam before the Senate goes into its long summer recess. It could adjourn as soon as tomorrow.

Click here to watch video of the exchange.

As the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights noted on Twitter, Tillis’ position is, in a word, “crazy.”

The bottom line: Tillis and his blockading conservative colleagues are simply not doing their jobs in 2016 when it comes to their constitutional duty to advise and consent on judicial nominations (including the nomination of the eminently qualified Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court) and it’s simply an embarrassment. Unfortunately, Tillis is so uninformed with respect to his constitutional duties that he doesn’t even grasp how wildly off-base he has strayed.

2 Comments


  1. Laurie

    July 14, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    Hmmm…
    A little freudian? I know he won’t do his job, it is just too hard to do “your job duties” and get reelected by the rabidness that defines his voters.

  2. Alan

    July 17, 2016 at 6:53 pm

    Tillis…. isn’t he the same knuckdragger that declared himself a “partner” in IBM, when IBM has no such position, and never has?

    Way to go NC, you managed to elect a card carrying Klan member who has trouble understanding what his job title is, let alone what he’s meant to do with it.

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