Judicial pick

Trump judicial pick is one defection away from failure

By MARIANNE LEVINE and BURGESS EVERETT

Some Senate Republicans are still weighing whether to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s judicial picks, raising Democratic hopes that they can defeat a nominee who they say is hostile to voting rights.

Thomas Farr can lose only one additional Senate vote in his bid to be a District Judge in North Carolina after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) reiterated Monday that he would vote against Farr’s nomination if Republican leadership did not bring to a vote legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. Flake, who is retiring, had supported Farr earlier this year during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote.

When asked whether he still planned to vote against Farr’s nomination, Flake said, “Yes, if we haven’t brought up the special counsel” bill. He added that only if the bill was brought up would he then “look at the merits” of Farr’s nomination.

That leaves Republicans no margin for error in the narrowly divided Senate, since all 49 Democrats are opposed to the nomination. Democrats said privately they believed that Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) or Susan Collins (R-Maine) might be swayed to oppose Farr. A spokeswoman for Murkowski declined to comment, and Collins said she’d “given thought” to his nomination and was still deliberating.

GOP leaders said they were working overtime to hold together the 50 of 51 GOP senators they will need without Flake.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said there was nothing to think about it, calling Farr “unquestionably one of the worst” nominees he’d seen in the Senate.

“It’s hard to believe President Trump nominated him, it’s even harder to believe Senate Republicans are considering him again,” Schumer said. “This is a man who stands for disenfranchisement of voters, particularly minority voters. That is what he stands for. You can try to parse it any way you want but that is what he has done.”

Farr has come under fire from Senate Democrats for his defense of a North Carolina voter ID law that an appeals court struck down for targeting African-American voters, and for his role as lawyer for former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms’ reelection campaign in 1990. Helms opposed the Civil Rights Act as a senator.

Republican aides said they still believed that Farr could be confirmed, but acknowledged that the weight of the arguments being made by opponents could make it more difficult later this week. They also said that with Flake’s entrenched opposition, every GOP senator — including a handful of Republicans up for reelection in 2020 — now becomes the potential deciding vote for Farr.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pulled Ryan Bounds’ nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over racially charged writings, following opposition from Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Rubio opposed the nomination after Scott flagged Bounds’ past comments.

Rubio told reporters on Monday that “as of now, I have no reason to vote no” on Farr’s nomination. But he said that given the questions raised by reporters, he was “going to go back and read more carefully into his records and see what the concerns are.”

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said: “I’m optimistic we’ll get Farr. We’ll continue our conversations.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Farr had been “unfairly treated” and said Democrats were seeking media attention.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and representatives for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law will hold a press call Tuesday reiterating their opposition to Farr’s nomination.