a senator blocked his judgeship over "female athletes." so he took her senate seat instead.

Photo: Scott Colom in a video for The Contrarian. The Contrarian, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

via Mississippi Free Press, The Advocate and Roll Call

In April 2023, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith looked at a Mississippi prosecutor named Scott Colom and decided he could not be trusted with a lifetime seat on the federal bench. On Wednesday she called him to concede hers.

The Associated Press called Mississippi's US Senate race for Colom, a Democrat, on Wednesday evening, eight days after the polls closed, the Mississippi Free Press reports, with Colom finishing on just over 49% of the vote. The Advocate, citing Decision Desk HQ, put his lead at 4,499 votes as of 5:21 p.m. Eastern. Hyde-Smith called Colom to concede and posted a video telling supporters, "While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters," the Free Press reports.

why she blocked his judgeship

Colom has been district attorney for Mississippi's 16th Circuit Court District, covering Oktibbeha, Lowndes, Noxubee and Clay counties, since 2015. President Biden picked him for the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, and the state's senior senator, Republican Roger Wicker, returned the "blue slip" that Senate custom requires, Roll Call reported at the time. Hyde-Smith withheld hers.

Her statement said: "As someone with a strong interest in protecting the rights of girls and women, I am concerned about Scott Colom's opposition to legislation to protect female athletes." She also said George Soros's support for his campaign "weighs heavily against his nomination in my view," and closed with: "I simply cannot support his nomination to serve on the federal bench in Mississippi for a lifetime." In fairness to her, she also called him "smart and well liked in his district." Mississippi voters apparently agreed with that part.

The Advocate reports that the trans angle went beyond sports: a prosecutors' statement Colom signed condemned criminalizing gender-affirming care and transgender people's use of restrooms. It also notes he ran as no crusader, telling Mississippi Public Broadcasting during the campaign that he backs fairness in girls' sports and opposes gender-affirming surgery for minors.

what mississippi just did

Colom will be the first Black senator to represent Mississippi since Blanche K. Bruce, whose term ended on March 3, 1881, the Free Press notes. The Advocate adds that he is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state since 1982; the Free Press dates the drought to the final election of John C. Stennis.

So the trans issue, deployed in 2023 to keep one man off one courtroom bench, has now delivered him to the United States Senate instead. We are not saying that is how karma works. We are saying it would be a very efficient design.

Colom's win lands in a midterm that already gave us a pile of LGBTQ results worth reading about.