SC Sen. Tim Scott says Supreme Court vote on Judge Jackson won’t be based on skin color
COLUMBIA, S.C. — As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson prepares to begin her confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court, South Carolina’s junior senator said Friday that he won’t make his decision to vote for her based on the color of her skin.
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate’s only Black Republican, described Jackson as competent and highly educated after meeting with her Thursday in his office in Washington.
Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court if confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“I’m not going to make a judgment based on the color of her skin; I’m going to make a judgment based on the record before me,” Scott told reporters Friday after he filed for reelection in 2022. “Certainly historic nominees are wonderful and perhaps a landmark, but they are not the determining factor. We must make sure our court functions without politics, not based on race, but based on the basic principles, the most powerful principles that govern this great country.”
Jackson’s hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin Monday.
—The State (Columbia, S.C.)
Texas AG Ken Paxton refuses to call transgender official Rachel Levine a woman — again
AUSTIN, Texas — After Twitter flagged him for “hateful conduct,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dug in on his decision to deny the gender identity of the nation’s highest-ranking transgender official.
Adm. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and a transgender woman, was recently named a woman of the year by USA Today. In a statement Paxton tweeted and sent to campaign supporters, the attorney general reiterated that he refuses to acknowledge Levine as a woman because he was following “science.”
Locked in a competitive bid for reelection, Paxton’s comments come on the heels of the state’s controversial decision to launch child abuse investigations into the families of transgender youth.
“This whole insane episode represents a two-pronged attack from the left — both of which I’m vigorously fighting against,” Paxton wrote. “First is the left’s war against human biology, and especially against women. Second is their weaponization of Big Tech against conservative voices.”
He added he was “exploring legal options” against Twitter.
—The Dallas Morning News
Overwhelmed prosecutors quitting ‘in tears’ amid staffing crisis, NYC district attorneys say
Underpaid prosecutors overwhelmed by a mammoth backlog of cases are quitting in droves when their work is needed more than ever, the city’s district attorneys told the City Council on Friday.
“Former staffers cited the responsibilities of discovery, managing the backlog of cases, and increased night and weekend shifts among the reasons why they leave,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark told the council’s Public Safety Committee at a virtual budget hearing.
“People are in tears when they leave because they love the work they do for the Bronx community, but the job is now overwhelming.”
Clark said 104 attorneys and 90 professional staff had quit her office by the end of February, surpassing the 96 attorneys and 51 professional staff who left in all of 2021.
Clark said the departures come as the Bronx DA faces 1,270 open gun cases.
“Gun violence is a blight on the Bronx that highlights a need for resources,” Clark said. “We must save a generation of boys and young men, predominantly of color, from death and prison.”
—New York Daily News
Ukraine war hits world economy like an earthquake, IMF head says
The war in Ukraine is like a powerful earthquake that will have ripple effects throughout the global economy, especially in poor countries, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund.
The conflict will lead to lower growth and faster inflation worldwide, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Friday on an IMF panel about the lender’s strategy to support fragile and conflict-affected nations. Countries, businesses and households will face more serious debt problems after a jump in borrowing during the first year of the pandemic, she said.
Ukraine and Russia together account for more than a quarter of the global trade in wheat, and a fifth of corn sales. The longer Russian forces remain in Ukraine, the longer tractors and combines to harvest the nation’s crops stay idle, threatening food security far beyond the region, Georgieva said.
“We would have some very significant problems that would be particularly difficult for fragile states,” Georgieva said. The world tends to focus on “front-page issues, and not on this second- and third-order-of-impact consequences,” she said.
—Bloomberg News
