While no organizations are currently pursuing the angle that Rubio may be opposing William Thomas on the grounds of his sexuality, the Congressional Black Caucus has pointed out that Thomas isn’t the only black nominee that Rubio stands in the way of.
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This post originally appeared at Occupy Democrats
By Ivan Gray
We live in a country today in which the justice system is dying a slow, painful death of a thousand paper cuts, buried under a towering mountain of excessive paperwork and backlogged cases, largely due to a lack of qualified judges to review each year’s stack of said cases. Granted, criminal cases -are- given priority over civil suits, so there is a small saving grace in that criminal defendants can still expect that their right to a speedy trial will be upheld, in relative terms at least. In personal experience, following an incident in which an aggravated assault occurred in which I was the victim, the case still took well over a year to reach trial, despite it being an open-shut case, with video. Comparatively, civil cases may take several years to make any headway, which has led to the excessively slow progress experienced with lawsuits involving everything from land disputes, to insurance claims, and even civil rights issues.
Compounding this issue, are a select few individuals standing in the way of the confirmation process for federally appointed judges. Among these select few, one can find Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio, (Perhaps best known for his infamous water bottle swig during the GOP response to one of Obama’s State of the Union addresses) is a junior Senator elected in 2010, is yet another newly elected Republican Congressman, being hailed as a potential candidate to save the GOP from itself. The primary hope was that he would be able to bridge the gap on immigration reform, but despite being of Cuban-American descent, he stays strong to Tea Party politics, even on an issue that the casual observer would assume he’d be sympathetic to. Despite claims of wanting to help our economy grow by implementing, “a legal immigration system that allows us to attract and assimilate the world’s best and brightest,” and expressing that, “We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally,” he holds true to deep right views centered around a, ‘border first’ agenda, which is, expectedly, counterproductive to attracting a large portion of the Latino vote, especially considering he falls rank and file in opposition to passing a bill with a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants already living in America.
Rubio’s disturbing social views extend to the usual Republican targets, including women’s rights, calling reproductive rights a, “moral breakdown” and any choices that don’t line up with his birther beliefs, “mistakes.” He even went so far as to join 21 other right-wing Senators mounting an attack on the women of America by voting against the Violence Against Women Act in February 2013, on the grounds that it extended protections to undocumented women and same-sex couples. On the topic of LGBT rights, Rubio still has the gall to claim to not be a bigot, stating, “I respect people who disagree with me on certain things, but that means they have to respect me too. Just because I believe states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot.” Merriam-Webster gives the textbook definition of a bigot as being, “a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance” which seems to fit Senator Rubio like a glove.
It then comes as no surprise for Rubio to be strongly opposed to the confirmation of The Honourable William Thomas, appointed by President Obama to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, to which Rubio is now the only roadblock as of last week, when Florida’s other Senator withdrew his opposition and sent in his blue slips approving the appointee. While there are several angles to look at on why a racist, homophobic, misogynist, GOP Senator would oppose an appointee purely on legal and character grounds, there seems to be a strong lacking in evidence on those types of reasonable objections- in fact, it’s certainly not unrealistic to consider that the opposition -may-, at least in part, be over the facts that Judge Thomas is black, liberal, and gay,(The first openly gay black male to have a shot at serving on the federal bench.) While no organizations are currently pursuing the angle that Rubio may be opposing Thomas on the grounds of his sexuality, the Congressional Black Caucus has pointed out that Thomas isn’t the only black nominee that Rubio stands in the way of, which, honestly, is unsurprising.
If it bothers you as an individual that a federal system so beleaguered already by towering stacks of backlogged cases is being further harmed by GOP obstructionism, please, consider contacting Senator Rubio, and, among other things, (Such as suggesting a course of action to displace his cranium from below his coccyx…) asking him to stop blocking a qualified federal appointee, and dedicated public servant from performing his appointed duties. America is hurting for qualified judges right now, and some certainly seem available and ready, with the only speed bump being individuals like Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio can be contacted at:
United States Senate
284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0904
202-224-3041 Toll-Free
202-228-0285 Fax
http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/ – Senate Homepage
@SenRubioPress – Twitter
Photo: AP File/Jae C. Hong