Washington Post: A Republican senator smeared a Biden nominee — and Democrats cowered
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on January 19, 2024.
Edelman was an important pick for progressives. Only 6 percent of federal judges have been labor-union lawyers or otherwise came from the “economic justice” sphere, the progressive Alliance for Justice has found. The number of judges who were public defenders is not much higher. Edelman, in addition to his years defending those who couldn’t afford lawyers, served the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Mine Workers, the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Firefighters and the AFL-CIO.
“Judges with experience in both economic justice and public defense are essentially nonexistent,” said Jake Faleschini, a legal director at the Alliance for Justice. “Judge Edelman was a unicorn nominee, and we would all be better off with him on the federal bench.” The group is “extremely disappointed that he didn’t receive a vote.” The right-wing Blackburn had ideological reasons to sabotage a judge who intimately understands the legal struggles of workers and the poor — and Democrats had every reason to champion him.