The United States Senate has cleared a major hurdle towards confirming one of Joe Biden’s most controversial nominees for the Department of Justice after the nomination process had stalled, as reported by The Hill.
Kristen Clarke, Biden’s nominee for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, saw her nomination held up after a tied 11-11 vote in the committee vote to approve her nomination, split along partisan lines. Democrats thus took to a full floor vote to break the tie, which saw one Republican, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) side with the chamber’s Democrats to override the committee tie. The final floor vote was 50-48, with another Republican senator who often sides with Democrats, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) not present for the vote.
With the procedural vote, the Senate will move towards a final floor vote to confirm Clarke to the DOJ position sometime this week.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted the Democrats’ decision to override the committee vote, saying that “it should come as no surprise Democrats failed to advance her nomination out of the Judiciary Committee by a majority vote, and are now forced to use other tactics to bring her troubled nomination to the floor.”
Clarke has faced increased scrutiny during her confirmation process after past writings of hers had emerged, which revealed that she holds racist beliefs against White people and believes black people are the genetically superior race. As Fox News’ Tucker Carlson first revealed back in January, Clarke, who styles herself as a “civil rights attorney,” wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson while she was President of the Black Studies Association. In the letter, she explicitly and baselessly claimed that “melanin endows blacks with greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities” than White people.