Supreme Court

If Donald Trump picks Allison Jones Rushing to replace the legendary, late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it will be the worst pick any President Of The United States has made in recent memory. Why? Because Allison Jones Rushing, the United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, is being elevated because she fits a checkmark of couch-potato conservative positions familiar to right-wing bloggers, and nothing else.

Let’s get this out of the way: if the position were something like senior vice president for legal at the Walt Disney Company, Allison Jones Rushing is certainly presents herself well, in general. This speech before the North Carolina Bar Association last year shows her to be people-centered and very much one who prizes the gift of giving in her personal life:

That’s all well-and-good but the fact is, I personally know of a number of judges who fit that same basic criteria. We’re talking about replacing the legendary intellect that is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We’re also talking about finding someone who has a record of high-intellectual consideration of the problems of the day, and one of clear judicial activism. Someone who moved the needle of America. Someone like, well, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In Allison Jones Rushing, we get someone who’s rise seems based on telling conservative elected officials that she is, well, conservative, and that’s it. At that, she is what I call a “couch-potato conservative”: one who unknowingly defines themselves as conservative by their attitudes on race, sex, and sexual orientation. Such a person does not have true respect for the American institutions of democracy and government. Such a person does not understand what a market economy is, or a socialist one, or how one American economy can have elements of both, let alone know what they are. Thus, they turn a blind to the maintenance of voting rights, or even the preservation of traditions of behavior between parties – like not campaigning when the other party’s convention is going on. They don’t understand the price mechanism or what “market failure” is, and how to fix it. In short, they’re not truly intellectual. Allison Rushing has attached herself to a “couch-potato conservative” ethic that’s come to harm America.

Ms. Rushing earned a B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University in 2004 and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University School of Law in 2007, where she served as executive editor of the Duke Law Journal. But beyond that, she…

Got a massive pass during her 2018 confirmation hearing for her current job. Allison managed to skip the standard schedule; it was during Senate recess that her hearing was held. All the better to escape the stinging and burning questioning of Democrats like California Senator Kamala Harris. This is what Vox wrote back then:

Allison Rushing, a nominee for a seat for the Fourth Circuit who testified on Wednesday, is among those being considered in these hearings. She’s been called out by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights given concerns about her stances toward civil rights. Rushing had previously spent a summer working with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as a hate group for its efforts to advance anti-LGBTQ policies.

“Scheduling Ms. Rushing’s hearing for October 17, 2018 over Democratic objections — during a Senate recess when senators are out of town — is just the latest example of Chairman Grassley bulldozing over the minority in order to remake the federal courts in Trump’s image,” the Leadership Conference’s Vanita Gupta said in a statement.

Sen. Hatch, in his questioning on Wednesday, opened by simply telling Rushing — “I’m very impressed with you.”

“There has been a concerted effort by my friends on the Democratic side to stall and re-stall and that’s just a fact,” Kennedy told reporters before the hearing. “We’re going to get all the nominees in front of the Senate. … Sen. [Mitch] McConnell [the Senate majority leader] has said that even if we have to stay here on Christmas Eve … we’re going to be here voting.”

The person they picked for that lifetime job is one who’s known for her summer law clerk job with the afforementioned Alliance Defending Freedom. The organization’s mission pretty much screams anti-gay, so it seems, given what she wrote back then, that South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his husband will not be welcome at her home any time soon.

Allison Jones Rushing justified the Defense Against Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states:

In a 2013 speech at a forum titled ‘Enemies of Mankind’: Religion and Morality in the Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Jurisprudence, Allison Jones Rushing outlined her support for the Defense of Marriage Act and her opposition to the Windsor decision in which the Supreme Court struck down the discriminatory law. Ms. Jones Rushing said in the speech: “The reasons for the law were both moral and practical,” continuing on to say “the fact that DOMA codified the definition of marriage that had prevailed throughout most of human history…was evidence that the law did have a valid basis” and that the majority opinion in Windsor was written “in a unique way that calls it bigotry to believe that homosexuality does not comport with Judeo-Christian morality.”

Allison Jones Rushing, Intellectually Lighter Than Not Only RBG But Most SCOTUS Judicial Appointments, Is Part Of A Republican “Stack The Court” Strategy

Account after account takes on the view that Allison Jones Rushing has been and is being fast-tracked. Take America’s Lawyer: Mike Papantonio and Trial Magazine Executive Editor Farron Cousins talking about how little experience she has on the bench.

Takes like those are common.

There’s more coming about Allison Jones Rushing here at Oakland News Now. But my early prediction is the Senate Confirmation Hearings will eat her alive.

Stay tuned.