Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has earned a reputation for efficiently pushing through the Trump administration’s nominations, despite often vociferous opposition from the Democrats. This week, however, he moved through two Trump nominees who had more support from the minority party than from his own. The two votes are illustrative of the sorry state of bipartisanship in our nation’s capital.
In the summer of 1991, John Charles Hinderaker was a junior lifeguard instructor for the Parks & Recreation Department in Santa Barbara, California. He’d later work as an errand runner, a busboy, a warehouse laborer, a substitute teacher and a car salesman at a Nissan dealership. As of September 23, he’s a confirmed judge, awaiting his commission on the U.S. District of Arizona. It’s a reminder that hard work can pay off, but Hinderaker’s case is interesting for another reason: he’s a Democrat.
Born in 1968, Hinderaker graduated from the University of California-Santa Barbara in 1991 and the University of Arizona College of Law in 1996. He clerked for two Arizona District Court judges before going into private practice. In 2018, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appointed him to the Pima County Superior Court.
In May 2019, shortly after a Judge Rader Collins took senior status on the District of Arizona Court, Hinderaker was approached by staffers for U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). They were looking for someone to recommend to President Trump to fill the vacancy.
Sen. Sinema had some credibility with the Trump administration, particularly after she took heated criticism for signing off on the nomination of Michael Liburdi, a former general counsel to Gov. Ducey known for his legal challenge to Arizona’s independent redistricting commission and his controversial work with Protect the Vote AZ.
As Matthew Brown of Deseret News reports, the Protect the Vote campaign in Arizona is aimed at reducing turnout among Native Americans and Latinos.
The Republican National Committee launched its Protect the Vote campaign…to counter efforts by the Democratic Party to expand vote by mail, ballot collecting and other measures that would make voting more accessible…
… [Ballot collecting] has a cultural component among the Native American voters who approach voting as a community effort. “There’s a lot of distrust among the indigenous people toward government,” said Democratic state Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, of Tucson and a member of Pasqua Yaqui Tribe. But “people trust their neighbors, their family members, to help them mail or turn in their ballot” if they can’t do it themselves.
Over the years, thousands of ballots have been collected by volunteers in Latino and Native American communities and delivered to voting locations as it became an effective get-out-the-vote strategy for Democrats. which eventually caught the attention of GOP lawmakers, like state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who sponsored HB2023, restricting and criminalizing the practice.
Despite his voter suppression actions, Liburdi was confirmed in July 2019, in a 53-37 vote, with only Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Doug Jones of Alabama joining Sinema in support.
Armed with this good will, Sinema successfully lobbied President Trump to nominate Hinderaker. It probably helped that Hinderaker had made political contributions to candidates for both parties and was appointed to the Pima County court by Gov. Ducey, which gave him some bipartisan credibility.
Nonetheless, when the roll call on his confirmation was held in the U.S. Senate, 25 Republicans voted against him.
Jocelyn Frances Samuels received degrees from Middlebury College (1977) and Columbia University Law School (1982) before serving as labor counsel to former Sen. Edward Kennedy. During the Obama administration, she served as director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health & Human Services and as acting assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice. She’s now executive director of The Williams Institute at UCLA, a think tank that “conducts independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.”
On September 23, Samuels was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a Democrat-reserved seat on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC is a five-member body responsible for enforcing laws on hiring discrimination and sexual harassment. With the confirmation of Samuels, it is fully staffed for the first time in the Trump administration.
According to Bloomberg Law, the Senate Democrats sent Samuels’ name to the White House in December 2019, but they dragged their feet on nominating her to the Commission.
Minority-party seats on the EEOC have traditionally been run through Democratic Senate leadership before being announced by the White House. The sources familiar with that process said all that remains is for the White House to make an announcement, but the timeline was not immediately clear…
The delay wasn’t solely intended to keep the EEOC understaffed and ineffective.
Samuels’ background as an LGBT rights advocate could create hurdles to confirmation in the Republican-majority Senate. Former EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum was nominated for a third term with the agency when a small group of Republican lawmakers led by Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah) blocked her nomination, citing concerns about Feldblum’s ability to balance religious freedom and LGBT rights. Feldblum in January decided to not pursue another term.
The Senate HELP committee didn’t receive her nomination until March 16, 2020, and ultimately only eight Republican senators supported her confirmation. As expected, Sens. Rubio and Lee voted against her.
It shouldn’t be so hard to get consensus in the Senate. Hinderaker was chosen as a judge by both a Republican governor and, in a rare gesture at bipartisanism, a Republican president. Yet, Senate Republicans were still split 27-25 on his nomination, with opponents objecting simply because Hinderaker is known as a Democrat and was suggested by a Democratic colleague.
Meanwhile, the EEOC seat was reserved for the minority, so opposing Samuel’s nomination served little purpose other than signaling opposition to gay rights. Forty-two of fifty voting Republican senators opposed her nomination, despite her clear qualifications for the position.
Even on the rare occasions when Trump and McConnell do something semi-normal that the Democrats can support, rank-and-file Republicans can’t abide it. As long as this kind of reflexive partisanship remains the norm, consensus in Washington will remain elusive.
For a while I thought the first guy was Ass Rocket from Minnesota. Might have had a stroke if that was so.
John Hinderaker, wow. We went to law school together. Haven’t seen him in years. Last I knew, he was successful in private practice. Thought he was with a big firm but I don’t recall if that was just my impression or if I knew specifics. I practiced in Tucson following law school from 1996 though 2010 before relocating to Washington state.
One of the last times I saw John was at a University of Arizona basketball game. Basketball was a big deal at the U of A. It was the only game in town since our football team sucked and no one paid attention to professional sports up the road in Phoenix. But basketball was the real deal. The U of A won the national championship in “97 and was in the tournament every year, often making deep runs. They were typically ranked in the top ten or even higher in those days. The legendary Lute Olson was our coach. Every night was sold out long in advance. It was the premier college basketball program west of the Mississippi unless one considers the incredible history of UCLA under John Wooden.
I would show up last minute and get in line for single, one-off tickets that people hadn’t picked up (or try to buy one from a scalper) right before the game and, when I managed to get inside, was always up in the nosebleeds. John and his wife had season tickets down in the expensive section at center court just off the Arizona bench. He was up at the top of that section. One had to work one’s way down toward the bench and that took years and lots of donations.
Anyway, I didn’t know that John was a regular this one night. I’d get my nosebleed ticket and then start looking for seats in the expensive section that were unoccupied. I’d wait until at least 10 minutes were off the clock because the rich and powerful tended to show up late. Then, if I saw an open seat, I’d walk down and quietly sit. I’d get funny looks sometimes because the folks in those sections knew their neighbors. But they didn’t necessarily know that I wasn’t a friend or relative who had been given the ticket for the night so didn’t typically say anything. Sometimes I’d stay in the cheap seats because, up there, one could yell and scream and fit right in. Down low, if one stood up or yelled too loud, people would likely “shush” you or ask you to sit down and not block their precious view. But being so close to the court was exciting with the whole place (well, not counting the expensive seats) going wild.
So this one night, I’m sitting in a pilfered seat and along comes John with his wife. He really pleasantly greets me and asks how I’m doing, introduces me to his beautiful lady. We all smile and chat for a bit. Then I notice they’re still standing there, looking at me. I say, “Uh, I’m in your seat.” He nods; his wife smiles; I take off.
A month later I run into him at a U of A law school alum event. I tell the story. Everyone laughs but John gets the punchline when he adds, “Yeah, and then he moved down and found a better seat.” Which was true. Maybe two rows behind the bench, sitting next to a guy named George Kalil, who was a big-shot local businessman, philanthropist and U of A basketball fan. A guy who often had lunch with Coach Olson and gave millions to the university. George knew I had no business there but was super kind and friendly.
Having been gone for ten years, I had no idea John had done so well. I mean, I knew he was very successful in private practice. But to be appointed as a superior court judge and now to the federal bench is a big deal.
John is a good guy. Didn’t know him real well. I remember him as someone who worked hard and cared about his grades. He wasn’t top of the class, maybe top 25%, but he had connections plus a great personality and he worked it to get into a big firm so I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. We were different, he and I, but we liked each other. I was top of my class but really didn’t give a damn. I didn’t study at all. Just happened to have a strange set of skills that lent themselves well to law school. By no means am I a genius. More a trained monkey. Just fortunate that law school came really easily. In real legal practice, John is way more successful. I’m a hippie liberal. John was very middle of the road but he always struck me as a good person. Someone with personal integrity.
Great story. Thanks for posting.
Really hate the new window that pops up and covers the lower right hand portion of my screen. Very, very annoying. Bad enough to drop my subscription if it is not fixed? Yes!
I think Ezra Klein’s argument about the Senate is exactly right: we should not expect bipartisanship predicated on old norms and traditions in today’s environment. There is just zero incentive to do so. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it does lead to inevitable reckoning with the structures that have needed reform for a very long time now.
Would be nice if the Democratic party could wake up to this reality.
Have to burn this party to the ground!