Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator, Illinois:

I don’t generally write letters to Senators for the same reason I quit writing letters to Santa about 50 years ago: I never get what I ask for.

But I’m hopeful you will buck that trend in your role as Senate Judiciary Chairman. As I understand it, in this position you are in charge of bringing federal court nominations from the President to the full Senate for confirmation hearings. I have also heard that you intend to honor a tradition, not written into the law, that says a person can be denied a confirmation hearing if either of the two U.S. Senators from his home state object.

But there are unique circumstances that come into play regarding Scott Colom of Columbus,  the President’s nominee to the judgeship of the U.S. District Court for Northern District of Mississippi.

Mississippi’s senior Senator Roger Wicker has turned in his blue slip that would allow Colom to proceed to a confirmation hearing. Cindy Hyde Smith, the junior Senator from the state, said she will not turn in a blue slip on Colom’s nomination.

Chances are, you know very little about Hyde Smith. Why would you? In each Congress since she became a Senator in 2018, she has rated at the bottom of the list in effectiveness. In fact, in 2020, a joint analysis by Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia rated her dead last, one slot behind the drinking fountain in the Senate Library. Lest you dismiss the Vanderbilt/Virginia rating as partisan, it ranked Wicker as the ninth most effective Republican Senator.

Among the things you probably don’t know about Hyde Smith is that she is the Delta Dawn of Mississippi’s Lost Cause ideology, waiting pathetically, yet patiently in her faded dress for The South To Rise Again and take her to back to Tara.

She has been known to don a Confederate soldier’s cap and rife and refer to them as “Mississippi History at its finest.” She is also prone to hilarious quips about making it harder for students at Mississippi’s HBCUs to vote and apparently yearns for a front row seat for the next public hanging, which I assume she feels has been too long overdue. In the good old days that Hyde Smith pines for, Mississippi led the nation in public hangings, sometimes referred to as lynchings.

But, of course, race played no role in her decision. Perish the thought.

Rather, her stated objection to Colom’s nomination is how it would impact female athletes. Seriously. A United States Senator said that.

As we know, the weighty matter of female athletes comes up almost every day in federal  courts around the nation. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a female pole vaulter or soccer player in the dock when court is in session.

The odd thing is that Colom has never addressed the issue of female athletes that looms so prominently in Hyde Smith’s fevered brain. I would assume that, as father to two little girls, Colom is  generally in favor of female athletes. What he and 72 other district attorneys around the country do oppose is the criminalization of doctors or parents who help someone through gender-affirming care or of individuals who use facilities aligned with their gender identity. No mention of female athletes at all.

For Hyde Smith to make that connection is the leap in logic of a lunatic.

She also pointed out that Colom, among many candidates, received campaign contributions from a PAC that funded candidates who support criminal justice reform, which sounds innocent enough until you learn that George Soros is the primary source of those funds.

George Soros, as any Republican will tell you, is a Rich Jew, the worst kind of Jew there can be.

So if you think Cindy Hyde Smith is going to consent to the nomination of a Black person supported by a rich Jew, you’ve got another think coming, mister. That ain’t the way we roll down here in Dixie.

As you can clearly see, her stated reasons for opposing Colom lack legitimacy. Her unstated, but more truthful, objections lack human decency.

In light of all this, I’m asking you to ignore the blue slip tradition and give Colom the chance for a hearing among the full Senate and let the chips fall where they may.

A single Confederate Cat Lady from Mississippi should not sink the nomination of a decent, qualified and honorable family man on the grounds that he is a Black man with an unknown attitude about female athletes who accepts campaign donations from a Rich Jew.

Really, is this too much to ask?

If you want to share your thoughts on Scott Colom’s nomination with Sen. Durbin, visit https://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/email or call his D.C. office at  202-224-2152.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

This column has been edited

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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