Obama judicial nominee who voted to keep Confederate stars and bars on Georgia state flag heads to nomination hearings

Is this what electing a Democratic president got us?

As he heads into his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Georgia judicial nominee Michael Boggs faces a fresh wave of opposition from Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups determined to sink his nomination over votes he took as a state legislator against gay rights, civil rights and abortion rights.

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) on Monday called it “despicable” that President Barack Obama supports Boggs for a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Among other things, Boggs has come under fire for past votes as a Georgia legislator to keep the Confederate insignia on the Georgia state flag, to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and to restrict access to abortion.

“Michael Boggs … voted to keep the Confederate battle flag, the most vicious symbol of racism and oppression and white supremacy that is known to man today,” Scott said on the syndicated radio program “Tom Joyner Morning Show.” “To have this being done by the first African-American president is shameful, it is painful and it hurts deep.”

Boggs will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee with six other Georgia judicial nominees who are part of an all-or-nothing package the president agreed to last year with Georgia’s Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson. The White House has maintained it had to compromise on Boggs to get other Democrat-backed nominees into the package. And compromise it did: Four of the seven nominees are GOP picks, and two are black in a state with a large black population.

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