WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today released the following statement regarding the Trump-Bondi Justice Department overturning decades of precedent by no longer cooperating with the American Bar Association (ABA) process for vetting and rating of judicial nominees:
“This is a seismic change in the judicial nominations process—an unjustified and blatantly political move by the Trump Administration. This decision overturns a practice that has been in place fornearly 70 years under Republican and Democratic Administrations alike in order to provide cover for unqualified and extreme nominees who would crumble under a nonpartisan review by their peers.
“This decision will ultimately ease the confirmation process for Trump nominees who have demonstrated bias against protected classes, don’t have the judicial temperament to rule fairly from the bench, or don’t have the requisite experience to be confirmed to lifetime appointments as federal court judges, negatively impacting generations of Americans.”
The ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has been conducting independent peer evaluations of the professional qualifications of judicial nominees since the Eisenhower Administration. The purpose of the rating is to evaluate the professional competence, integrity, and judicial temperament of each nominee. Notably, during the first Trump Administration, 10 judicial nominees were found “Not Qualified” by the ABA—the reasons ranged from lack of temperament to lack of experience—while all 235 confirmed lifetime judges during the Biden Administration had at least a “Qualified” rating, if not a “Well Qualified” rating.
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