That story about a deal struck between Mitch McConnell and the White House that would allow the nomination of a pro-life judicial nomination in Kentucky just got even weirder. The last information we had was that the deal was off because of Rand Paul’s refusal to agree with the deal. The question was why would Paul nix a nominee with cred with the Federalist Society and a conservative legal background?
Chad Meredith was set to be nominated to a lifetime judicial seat on the Eastern District Court in Kentucky when a vacancy comes up, which was expected to be soon. The nomination was to be announced by Biden on June 24, the day that the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the Dobbs case. That didn’t happen. The deal was initially exposed through emails obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal. This is the third time I’ve written about this deal and there still doesn’t seem to be any real reason for it falling apart.
The story is that Meredith would be nominated and the Democrat leadership in the Senate would bring it to a vote in exchange for McConnell not blocking Biden’s judicial nominations going forward. McConnell said that Biden went along with the deal because of his personal friendship with McConnell from all their years in the Senate together. It was a personal favor, he said. It all sounded too good to be true, especially given the divide between the two parties and Biden’s open hostility to Republicans, especially since the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs. Why would Schumer, as partisan as a partisan can get, agree to work with McConnell over a pro-life judicial nomination? Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin told reporters he had asked the White House what concession McConnell had promised in exchange for Biden nominating Meredith. They didn’t have a specific answer for him.
Rand Paul was thrown under the bus by McConnell and the White House. On Monday Paul spoke to reporters about the kerfuffle.
“McConnell’s to blame for tanking this because he tried to do it secretly [and] Democrats caught wind up in the state,” Paul told reporters Monday about the failed drive to nominate Chad Meredith as a district court judge in the Bluegrass State.
“We never heard about it from McConnell’s office,” Paul added. “And his people simply said, ‘You can’t do this but we can.’ You know, ‘We’re so powerful, we can do whatever we want.’”
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Despite failing to return a blue slip for Meredith’s nomination, Paul indicated on Monday that he would have supported his confirmation.
“We have no reason to be opposed to Chad Meredith, other than we want at least the courtesy of … the minority leader thinking that he’s not so important that he doesn’t have to talk to his fellow state senator,” Paul told reporters. “The left ended up hating it, but also even his colleagues — myself — weren’t too happy about him doing it without having any discussion.”
Frankly, I don’t blame Paul for being pissed off about being left out of the loop. But was he? One source (unnamed) told Politico that the offices of McConnell and Paul were in communication over the nomination.
“We’ve had conversations for months about this on the staff level,” the person told the outlet.
“Senators are together a lot, there’s no lack of access between any senators, certainly senators of the same party,” the person added. “The conservative base does not care about an inside-the-Beltway process argument. They would like a Federalist Society rock star in a lifetime judicial seat.”
So, we’re back to where we were – if McConnell and Paul want a Federalist Society “rock star” on the bench and Biden was willing to go along with it, what happened? If you ask me, the White House got cold feet after the Dobbs decision came down and the ensuing hysteria from women on the left and in the middle hit. They likely were looking for an out in order to appease Democrats who were outraged that Biden made such a deal with McConnell. If Rand Paul was dragging his feet because he was ticked off about being out of the loop, the White House found a reason. Either way, don’t look for a pro-life judge on the federal bench until at least 2024. And, that’s only if everything goes right and we have a Republican majority in the House, the Senate, and a Republican president in the White House. I think President DeSantis will make good choices for nominations, don’t you?
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