[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 188 (Thursday, November 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S7208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Thomas Farr

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, there has been a lot of activity in 
the Senate today, and I wish to cover a couple of topics, starting with 
the nomination of Thomas Farr to be a U.S. District Court judge for the 
Eastern District of North Carolina. I understand we will not be voting 
on that nomination today.
  I hope our colleagues will take the time between now and whenever we 
may cast a final vote on that nomination to take another look at the 
record because a number of very informative things have come out in 
recent days about Mr. Farr's record.
  I want to take us back to a moment where this Senate Chamber was back 
in 2006. Back in 2006, the U.S. Senate passed the Voting Rights 
Reauthorization Act by a vote of 98 to 0. Ninety-eight Senators in 
favor of the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization--none opposed. The House 
passed the same bill by a vote of 390 to 33. President Bush signed that 
bill into law.
  Fast forward to 2013, we have a case in the Supreme Court, Shelby 
County v. Holder. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, took a big 
bite out of the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act. They 
eliminated the preclearance provisions. What we saw within a matter of 
weeks and months were States around the country that had previously 
been subject to the preclearance provisions beginning to enact laws 
putting up barriers to people's ability to vote, especially minority 
voters. Texas enacted legislation and North Carolina enacted 
legislation, among others.
  I want to focus for a moment on what happened in North Carolina 
because in North Carolina the State legislature passed a bill that put 
up all sorts of obstacles that made it much harder--for African 
Americans especially--to cast their vote, to exercise their right to 
vote. When that bill was appealed to the Fourth Circuit, the Fourth 
Circuit found that North Carolina State legislation had targeted 
African-American voters with almost ``surgical precision,'' and they 
threw out that North Carolina law.
  Well, just a few days ago, this Senate confirmed a nominee to be 
legal counsel at the Department of Agriculture, Stephen Vaden, who was 
one of the people who filed and coauthored an amicus brief in support 
of the North Carolina law that was overturned. The Senate acted, and we 
did that.
  It turns out that just a few days later, we have a nomination not for 
the general counsel for the Department of Agriculture but for somebody 
to be on the U.S. courts who was the architect and the defender of 
these North Carolina laws, Thomas Farr. That same law which the Court 
said targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision, trying 
to deny them their right to vote, was also found by the Court to be 
``the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era 
of Jim Crowe.''
  Thomas Farr wasn't just a key player in that case in defending North 
Carolina's discriminatory law, he was also a key player in passing 
other North Carolina laws that have been thrown out because of their 
discriminatory impact. He was in the middle of North Carolina's effort 
to redraw State legislative lines for both State House districts and 
State Senate districts that the U.S. Supreme Court threw out on the 
grounds that it was racially discriminatory, but his history in trying 
to put up barriers to minority voting rights goes back even further.
  I have in my hand a memorandum, dated June 19, 1991, from within the 
Justice Department. It was during the administration of George Herbert 
Walker Bush. It is a memo recommending that the United States bring a 
lawsuit against the North Carolina Republican Party and the Helms for 
Senate Committee--that would be Jesse Helms, former Senator--for 
conducting a postcard mailing program designed to intimidate and 
threaten Black voters throughout the State of North Carolina in order 
to discourage them from participating in the November 6, 1990, general 
election.
  I urge all of my colleagues to read this memorandum from the Justice 
Department during the time George Bush was President. I especially 
direct them to page 12. There is a footnote on page 12 that talks about 
Thomas Farr's work in this area of trying to put up barriers to voting, 
going way back to not just the 1990 election but back to the 1984 
election of Senator Jesse Helms.
  In fact, this Department of Justice memorandum states that Farr was 
the primary coordinator of the 1984 ``ballot security'' program 
conducted by the North Carolina GOP and the 1984 Helms for Senate 
Committee. He--referring to Thomas Farr--coordinated several ``ballot 
security'' activities in 1984, including a postcard mailing to voters 
in predominantly Black precincts which was designed to serve as a basis 
to challenge voters on Election Day.
  I don't know what has happened to the Senate between 2006, when it 
unanimously voted to extend the Voting Rights Act, and today, when we 
have on the floor the nomination of Thomas Farr, who has a history of 
being the point person in trying to limit the ability of Americans to 
exercise their right to vote and, according to the Fourth Circuit of 
the United States, did so with ``surgical precision'' in denying 
African-American voters.
  How can we in good conscience put someone on the Federal Court of the 
United States who has that history? How can people who come before that 
court have the confidence that the person--that judge--is really going 
to uphold their rights?
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.