From FRC Action
The Senate Judiciary Committee held the hearing on the nomination of Nancy Abudu. Some of her responses to questions were quite alarming. Not only did she double down on her support for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and her work there, but she refused to adequately answer questions about her involvement in the “judge-shopping” for which the SPLC is under investigation in federal court. Shockingly, although the lawsuit the SPLC filed against a bill to protect children and allegedly sought a friendly judge for could come before her if she is confirmed to the 11th Circuit, she would not affirmatively say she would recuse herself.
It was Sen. Lee who asked her about the SPLC lawsuit to strike down the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, the Alabama law which protects children from gender transition procedures. He also detailed the steps the SPLC took to try and game the system and ensure they got a favorable judge. Abudu denounced “judge-shopping” as a general matter but did not acknowledge that SPLC had engaged in this practice. She is the SPLC’s Strategic Litigation Director but claimed that she was only generally aware of this case in an oversight capacity and refused to affirmatively say she would recuse herself from hearing this case if she is confirmed.
She repeatedly dodged important questions as well as defended the SPLC and her work there. In an astonishing exchange with Sen. Hawley, she refused to condemn the comments of a senior fellow for the SPLC who said, “I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups [meaning organizations that are not ideologically aligned with the SPLC]. To completely destroy them.” She said she was unfamiliar with these comments and stood on her work at the SPLC. She claimed not to have the context for the comments as if context could make them okay! She refused to say that she was concerned by the SPLC’s record when confronted with multiple articles and quotes about the nefarious and corrupt nature of the SPLC.
She was asked about the SPLC’s connection to the shooting here at FRC in 2012 and refused to say that we were not akin to the KKK. When asked about the source of the SPLC’s funding and its profiteering off of labeling political opponents as “hate groups” she, again, did not answer the question. Rather, she pivoted to the use of the funds claiming it was for good purposes. Senator Sasse rightly pointed out that, “it just doesn’t pass the laugh test that you are unaware that the organization you work for raises its money by labeling people who believe in the historic constitutional definition of religious liberty as hate groups. It’s how they raise their money. You’re not unaware of that.”
Similarly, when confronted with the internal sexism and racism at the SPLC, she doubled down on her support for the SPLC, and noticeably absent from her testimony was any indication that these issues have been addressed and are no longer a systemic problem within the organization.
Her primary work for the SPLC involved elections and voting rights issues. She was asked if she believed an SPLC report from last year which she helped create that said, “voter identification is burdensome and does not serve any legitimate state interest,” she claimed that it was hard to understand the context with that language and that the Supreme Court had found in favor of such laws. She refused to give her opinion and either agree or disagree with the report. She was asked about a speech in which she was the discussing the criminal justice system she said, “it’s a criminal justice system that can literally kill you,” and further stated that, “when you add laws that prohibit people with a criminal conviction from voting its practically the same system as during slavery.” She simply claimed that these comments were made in her role as an advocate and said nothing to distance herself from agreeing with these divisive comments.
Relatedly, Ms. Abudu supports the unconstitutional idea of “preclearance” that would require certain states to get approval from the Department of Justice before they can enact election integrity laws. The Supreme Court has said this is unconstitutional, yet she supports changing the Senate rules in an attempt to unilaterally enact this federal power grab without bipartisan consensus.
Please reach out now to tell Senator Ernst and Senator Grassley and ask them to oppose Nancy Abudu’s nomination!
TELL YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE NANCY ABUDU’S NOMINATION!
I contacted both Grassley and Ernst about this weeks ago. There response was boilerplate “thank you for your thoughts.”