Democrats had slammed Thomas Farr for systematically stripping African Americans of their voting rights.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is officially opposing Trump judicial nominee Thomas Farr, a controversial pick who Democrats argue has systematically stripped African Americans of their voting rights — meaning his nomination will likely fail.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has said he’ll be blocking all Trump judicial nominees until a bill protecting special counsel Robert Mueller gets a floor vote. Scott’s vote was crucial for Republicans to hit the 50-vote threshold they needed to confirm Farr to a North Carolina district court seat.
Farr is the second judicial nominee that Scott, the lone black Republican in the Senate, has opposed, making it impossible for the two to get confirmed. In both cases, the nominees were involved in controversies over race in the past: Scott previously said he’d vote against Ninth Circuit nominee Ryan Bounds, over his past racist writings.
Scott said that his stance against Farr was driven, in part, by a Justice Department memo that broke down the agency’s complaint against the 1990 campaign of former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.
The Helms campaign had sent more than 120,000 postcards targeted at mostly African-American voters aiming at intimidating and preventing them from going to the polls. Farr had served as legal counsel for the Helms campaign at the time, though he has denied any involvement in the mailing.
“I am ready and willing to support strong candidates for our judicial vacancies that do not have lingering concerns about issues that could affect their decision-making process as a federal judge,” Scott said in a statement on the nomination.
