Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker is insinuating that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a racist for his opposition to President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
On Thursday, McConnell announced he would not support Judge Jackson “after studying the nominee’s record and watching her performance this week.”
Booker, who ran in the 2020 to challenge McConnell and lost to Amy McGrath in the Democratic primary, took to social media to attack McConnell.
“No one is surprised Mitch McConnell refuses to vote for Judge Jackson,” Booker wrote. “He probably thinks she is three-fifths of a judge.”
The statement, is a reference to the the “three-fifths compromise” in the 1787 United States Constitution which declared “for purposes of representation in Congress, enslaved Blacks in a state would be counted as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state.”
The Republican Party of Kentucky responded to Booker, telling Kentucky Fried Politics the Democratic candidate is embarrassing himself and the voters of the state.
“Charles Booker continues to embarrass himself and the voters of the commonwealth. Leader McConnell has commented that Judge Jackson is a “sharp lawyer with an impressive resume,” but he cannot vote for her because of her unsatisfactory answers on court packing and judicial philosophy. Does Mr. Booker support court packing?,” said RPK Spokesperson Sean Southard.
“Leader McConnell has a long history of championing civil rights, as noted by the New York Times,” Southard continued. “Mr. Booker’s performance art may appeal to the nonprofit donors off of whom he’s personally profited, but he’s embarrassing himself and Kentucky.”
Booker is vying for the Democratic nomination this year hoping to unseat Republican Sen. Rand Paul.
McConnell announced his opposition to Judge Jackson in a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate detailing the positions he disagreed with, and why he would be voting against her nomination to a lifetime appointment on the High Court.
Jackson’s nomination is expected to come to a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 4. Democrats can pass Jackson out of the full Senate as long as all of their 50 members vote in lock-step and Vice President Harris breaks a tie-vote.
