Another Day, Another Comically Unfit Judicial Nominee

Trump judicial nominee rails about "Satan's plan."

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It’s not fair to say that every nominee this administration offers up for the federal bench is unfit for office. There are certainly a number of experienced lawyers and jurists getting nods to fill the massive number of lower court vacancies in the United States. We need not get into why there are so many vacancies conveniently left at the end of the black guy’s administration that only now constitute a crisis anyone sees fit to address. Whatever “random caprice of fate” or “concerted campaign to subvert constitutional order” brought us to this point, there are a lot of holes to fill and the majority of people submitted to occupy these critical jobs are perfectly competent.

But it’s equally unfair to suggest that this administration hasn’t made a laughing stock of the federal judiciary through this process. With jobs of such import, the administration cannot and should not be judged by “getting it mostly right.” When the Bush administration used to justify national security excess with by saying “the terrorists only have to be right once” it may have made a mess of rational policy analysis, but when applied to judicial nominations, the calculus rings true: the administration should be judged — and judged harshly — more by its failures than any successes. These are lifetime appointments to positions that wield incredible power. That the administration is trying to fill so many at once — by design — only supercharges the importance of guaranteeing that every single nominee is above reproach. If the job wasn’t important enough to fill for 3 years with any of the qualified people the last administration named, the nominee today must really be something! The administration “only has to be wrong once” to undermine the integrity of the entire project.

So far they’ve been wrong… a lot more than once.

These days, attention is shifting to Jeff Mateer, a nominee for an Eastern District of Texas seat. Mateer is currently serving in the Texas AG’s office, but he only came to that job after punching his ticket at the First Liberty Institute, one of those non-profit advocacy centers dedicated to the principle that “liberty” means the right of everyone in this great nation to deny basic human rights to gays. From the Human Rights Campaign:

In a 2015 speech titled “The Church and Homosexuality,” Mateer objected to a transgender student using the bathroom corresponding to her gender identity, saying “I mean it just really shows you how Satan’s plan is working and the destruction that’s going on.” As general counsel of the Liberty Institute — now known as the First Liberty Institute — he defended then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s ‘license-to-discriminate’ bill and objected to efforts to alter the legislation. Mateer also fought against non-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community of Plano, Texas and San Antonio, Texas. Mateer also supports the dangerous and debunked practice of so-called “conversion therapy,” and claimed that marriage equality will lead to bestiality.

Historically, federal jurists don’t talk about “Satan’s plan,” but welcome to the 21st century, y’all.

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This isn’t a slip up. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in spite of vetting, it happens because of it. Before he committed himself to publicity seeking stances on homosexuality, Mateer enjoyed a perfectly unremarkable career in private practice, but no one believes that’s why he’s in this position today. Building the judiciary exclusively out of Harvard grads with lengthy prosecutorial résumés and even more lengthy patrician pedigrees has certainly ossified the judiciary in dangerous ways — particularly in terms of criminal justice and workers’ rights — but choosing jurists based on who can garner the most outlandish media hit isn’t much better. It’s one thing for a lawyer to defend conservative causes, like, say, Paul Clement. It’s a whole other thing for a lawyer to rail against the march of constitutional rights as part of “Satan’s plan” and have this outburst serve as justification rather than disqualification from office.

But, again, this isn’t the first black eye for the Trump team. John Bush? Damien Schiff? When observers can plausibly say a federal appellate nominee is at best a blogger with a law degree and at worst a 4chan troll with a Martindale entry, then the sanctity of the whole endeavor is, rightly, tarnished. It demeans every nomination. A universally well-regarded 15-year veteran of the U.S. Attorney’s Office is now of the same cloth as a guy who made a name for himself as the lawyer who thinks gay people are trying to destroy schools. At some point, cynicism hijacks the whole process.

If it hasn’t already.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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