Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday criticized one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees for blanking on basic questions about the U.S. Constitution in her confirmation hearing last week.
Charnelle Bjelkengren, a county superior court judge in Washington and former assistant state attorney general nominated to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, couldn’t answer when quizzed by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) about Article II and Article V of the Constitution, and about a judicial philosophy known as “purposivism.”
Article II sets up the presidency and the executive branch, while Article V outlines the process for amending the Constitution. Bjelkengren said she couldn’t recall what either of them did as she sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Wednesday.
“Goodness gracious,” McConnell said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Is this the caliber of legal expert with which President Biden is filling the federal bench? For lifetime appointments? Is the bar for merit and excellence really set this low?”
Kennedy is known for his pop quizzes to judicial nominees that come before the committee. He’s done it to nominees from presidents in both parties, including one of former President Donald Trump’s nominees, Matthew Peterson, who withdrew his nomination after a particularly humiliating exchange with the Republican senator.
Kennedy told HuffPost on Tuesday that he plans to oppose Bjelkengren’s nomination because she failed to answer his questions.
“If you want to be an auto mechanic,” he said, “you gotta know what a spark plug is.”
Bjelkengren’s flub clearly wasn’t great for Democrats, but they are chalking the moment up to nerves that first-time judicial nominees often experience when testifying before Congress.
“The honest answer is there aren’t many members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who can answer all those questions,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the committee, said of Kennedy’s propensity for asking obscure or curveball questions.
Asked if he thinks judicial nominees should be familiar with Article II of the Constitution specifically, Durbin said, “Of course, but what I’m saying is, you’re in the middle of a hearing, a little nervous to start with…. It happens.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who put forward…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Women…