Care must be taken to make sure the next U.S. Supreme Court justice is a person of strong character who won't try to legislate from the bench, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Newsmax Thursday.
She added that many of the nominees the Biden administration has put forward for federal court seats "have a tendency to be liberal" and politically active.
"Many of them have no experience sitting on the bench at the city-county state level, but what they are is politically active," the Tennessee Republican said on Newsmax's "American Agenda," while discussing the potential replacement for retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
"With this being a Supreme Court lifetime appointment, we want to make certain that the individual is going to have the requisite experience, that they are going to be someone who [is] obliged by the Constitution, by the rule of law, and that they are fair in their writings and their opinions and their briefings."
The Judiciary Committee, which is charged with the consideration of all federal judiciary nominations, will review those previous writings, and will work to ensure the nominee is "a person of strong character," said Blackburn.
President Joe Biden on Thursday affirmed his pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying it was "long overdue."
But Blackburn said it's more important to find the most well-qualified person for the job.
"It is the job of the Senate Judiciary Committee to provide advice and consent," she said. "That is our constitutional prerogative, and we should be doing that. The focus should be on finding the most well-qualified person to fill that spot."
The courts have come under scrutiny and attack because people feel they have become politicized, she added, and "they don't want that. They want equal treatment under the law, and they want fairness for all who are standing before the court."
In other matters, Blackburn Thursday discussed the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing and said it is important not to put attention on Beijing and President Xi Jinping, considering China's poor history on human rights.
Further, she said she's concerned for the safety and security of U.S. athletes.
"I am concerned that there are apps that they will have to download on their phones even if it's a burner phone, and that will enable surveillance of them by the Communist Party," said the senator. "If they can say we're going to invoke extreme censorship on the internet, and you're going to have to submit your writing to the Chinese Communist Party for approval before you can post it, this is something that we shouldn't be involved in."
Blackburn further said Americans should be concerned about a new book claiming the Biden family made more than $31 million from business dealings in China.
"The Chinese want to be globally dominant by the time we get to the midpoint of the century," she said. "We should all be very concerned and question these business dealings. Joe Biden should be very hard on China. Look at what they did not only to us, but the world with COVID-19.
"We still don't know the origins of that. Look at what they're carrying out with genocide ... we should say no, until you begin to act like a member of the community of nations we are not going to allow you to participate."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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