On the Senate floor Thursday, Cotton doubled down, saying, “Rachael Rollins believes the American criminal justice is racist and rotten to its core. “If she’s confirmed as the US attorney, the cartels and the gangs that are fueling violence and death in our communities will be gleeful.” “Miss Rollins appears to measure success as a prosecutor not by how many victims and innocent people she protects, but rather by how many criminals she keeps from facing consequences,” Cotton said at the hearing. The Senate approved all 85 US attorney nominees of former president Donald Trump, Markey said, “despite disagreement with multiple nominees’ records and ideology.”īut Cotton made it clear at the Judiciary Committee hearing in September that he would fight her nomination to the end. Markey called the opposition to Rollins and the Judiciary Committee’s September deadlocked vote “truly outrageous.” For the last three decades, he said, senators have approved presidential nominees for US attorney on voice votes even when individual members strongly disagreed with the choices. If they oppose her in the final vote, the tally would be 50-50 and Vice President Kamala Harris would have to step in to cast the deciding vote. It is likely that vote would mirror Thursday’s, a Markey aide said. No date has been set yet for the confirmation vote. And on Thursday, majority leader Chuck Schumer requested that vote.
Because of the deadlock, a majority of senators needed to agree to consider her nomination. In September, the Judiciary Committee split evenly, 11-11, on Rollins’s nomination, with all Republican members opposed. Rollins could not immediately be reached for comment after the vote. Warren said homicides have dropped in Boston by a third during the first nine months of 2021, a drop that stands in “stark contrast” to nationwide trends.īut Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who led the opposition to Rollins’s nomination in the Judiciary Committee, said Rollins is “so radical” that she is without precedent as a US attorney nominee. Warren said Rollins did exactly what she promised to do when she ran for district attorney, adopting innovative policies that “are designed to improve the administration of justice and to reduce crime.”
It is offensive, and it is not in service to public safety,” said Markey. “The opposition to Rachael Rollins is nothing more than a deeply partisan ploy to score political points at the expense of the record of a respected, qualified, courageous, Black, female, progressive district attorney. Markey, who along with Warren submitted Rollins’s name to President Biden in January, made an impassioned plea on the Senate floor, calling Rollins “a prosecutor at her core,” who has a strong record of prosecuting criminals that has been “distorted and mischaracterized” by Republicans.
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