By nominating Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins to be US attorney for Massachusetts, President Biden has done something none of her critics have managed to do: silence her.
It’s only temporary, as protocol demands a nominee keep their own counsel until they are confirmed by the Senate.
Which in this case is a genuine tragedy, because I would pay big money to hear what Rollins has to say about Senator Tom Cotton and his vow to block her appointment.
Tom Cotton is a Harvard-educated, ultra-conservative Republican from Arkansas who sometimes talks like he longs for the ol’ days of unapologetic prejudice. Rachael Rollins is a progressive Black woman from Massachusetts who lives to challenge the status quo.
Need I say more?
But wait, there is more.
Cotton, who wants to run for president, once described slavery as a “necessary evil” to build the nation.
Um, slavery was evil, all right. But it wasn’t necessary, except maybe so the ancestors of Cotton’s most ardent admirers could sip mint juleps on the expansive porches of their plantations, while slaves did all the work and faced the prospect of the whip if their owners thought their efforts lacking.
Cotton’s beef with Rollins is that she is too woke. Which, for right-wing ideologues like him, is just another word for uppity.
“Democrats have defunded police departments, stopped prosecutions for numerous crimes, ended cash bail, and demanded early release even for violent criminals,” Cotton said in a statement. “These actions resulted in a historic increase in murders and contributed to the crime wave. Rachael Rollins won’t stand up for the victims of these crimes, and I will seek to stop her nomination.”
For the record, Rollins has never called for defunding the police, only for holding them accountable. While crime is up in many cities, violent crime is actually down in Boston. An independent study, meanwhile, suggested Rollins’s policy of focusing on serious crime while not gumming up the criminal justice system with less serious crimes is bearing fruit.
Rollins’s prospective boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, has said combating urban violent crime is a top Justice Department priority, and has directed federal prosecutors to do something about it.
Cotton has no confidence in a Justice Department led by Democrats. He’s the kind of guy who was more comfortable with the last two AGs, one a Donald Trump toady, the other named after two heroes of the Confederacy.
There’s a bigger game going on here. As University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told WBUR’s Deborah Becker, while nominees for US attorney must be approved by the Senate, few are subjected to confirmation hearings like the one Cotton and Republicans plan for Rollins. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Rollins is not above criticism, and it’s fair game to question her temperament. It’s perfectly legitimate for senators to question Rollins about her run-in with a woman who accused her of road rage, or the contentious run-in with a Channel 25 news crew that showed up at Rollins’s home unannounced while investigating the alleged road rage incident.
But Rollins’s critics should likewise be held to account for their shabby methods and shabbier motives.
Cotton’s temperament and treatment of Lloyd Austin, the first Black person to serve as secretary of defense, during Austin’s confirmation hearing was disgraceful, and provides a glimpse of what awaits Rollins. Cotton, a former Army captain, seemed to relish the opportunity to disrespect a former general. Cotton repeatedly interrupted Austin, moaning about law enforcement and the military going all woke and soft.
Tom Cotton sitting in judgment of people such as Lloyd Austin and Rachael Rollins is like the 400-pound Mafia boss Carmen “The Big Cheese” DiNunzio lecturing the rest of us on our diets. (Not for nothin’, but Carmen is a very nice guy.)
Checks and balances are essential to a democracy. As ludicrous as it is that someone like Tom Cotton is leading the charge against Rachael Rollins, that’s how a constitutional republic works. In this case, he’s just a necessary evil.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at kevin.cullen@globe.com.