This week, the Senate is set to vote on the nominations of Andrew Brasher and J. Campbell Barker for lifelong positions on the federal bench. Brasher currently serves as the Solicitor General of Alabama and is a nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Barker currently serves as the Deputy Solicitor General of Texas and is a nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Lisa Cylar Barrett, Policy Director at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) issued the following statement:
“As we prepare to honor the 65th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education next month, the Senate is preparing to confirm judicial nominees who stand athwart the principles of equality laid out in that landmark decision. At his confirmation hearing, Andrew Brasher refused to endorse the Brown decision, and his record makes clear why. Throughout his career, Brasher has supported eroding the Voting Rights Act, defended a law that disenfranchised almost 300,000 people with felony convictions, and criticized the Supreme Court’s efforts to remedy racial gerrymanders. J. Campbell Barker’s record is similarly rife with efforts to thwart racial justice, including defending Texas’s discriminatory voter ID law and the racially-biased death sentence of Duane Buck. LDF successfully challenged both Texas’ voter ID law and Duane Buck’s capital sentence, and we’re alarmed by what Barker and Brasher’s confirmations would mean for litigants with civil rights claims.
“Confirming these nominees to lifelong seats on the federal bench would be an affront to civil rights. We call on Senators to honor the conception of equality under the law articulated in the Brown decision by voting no on Brasher and Barker’s nominations.”
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
