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Allison Jones Rushing has a history of opposing same-sex marriage and working with an organization that the South Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.
Another wildly homophobic Trump-nominated judge has been appointed to a lifetime position in the federal judiciary.
On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Allison Jones Rushing to a seat in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, HuffPostreports. The vote split cleanly on party lines, with 53 Republicans voting to confirm Rushing's appointment and 44 Democrats voting in opposition.
Many Democratic senators took issue with Rushing's past work for Alliance Defending Freedom (a conservative Christian nonprofit that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group) as well as her past opposition to same-sex marriage. Others, like Dick Durbin of Illinois, simply didn't think that Rushing was qualified for the position.
"[She has] the most scant, weakest legal resume imaginable for someone who's seeking a lifetime appointment to the second-highest court of the land," Durbin said. "She has practiced law for nine years. How many cases has she tried to verdict or judgment? Four. Has she been the lead attorney on any of those cases? No."
Rushing, now the youngest judge in the country at 37 years old, is only the latest Trump nominee with a monstrous ideological record to be confirmed to the judiciary. Last month, the Senate confirmed Neomi Rao, a Trump administration official who once blamed rape victims for their assault and compared queer activists to fascists, to the D.C. Court of Appeals, and lawmakers will vote on two more ideologically conservative nominees, Eric Murphy and Chad Readler, later this week.
Trump's impact on the court system cannot be overstated, HuffPost notes. Since taking office two years ago, the President has successfully nominated 32 circuit judges, 53 district court judges, and two Supreme Court justices to lifetime court appointments.
"That's so many circuit judges," writes HuffPost senior politics reporter Jennifer Bendery. "[More than any other president confirmed by this point in his first term... [One in six] seats on U.S. circuit courts is now filled by a judge nominated by Trump."
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