Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked Scott Colom from becoming a judge for being pro-trans. Now, he might take her Senate seat

This story originally appeared on Them.See, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite. Though the Mississippi U.S. Senate race has not yet been called, Democrat Scott Colom is currently leading by just over 1,000 votes in the traditionally red state, which hasn’t had a Democrat as a senator since 1989. And, in an especially ironic twist, this matchup likely only took place because incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith once sidelined Colom for supporting trans rights. As first observed by Ashton Pittman, the news editor of the Mississippi Free Press, a nonprofit journalistic outlet that launched in 2020, Colom’s congressional campaign comes just three years after Hyde-Smith blocked Colom from becoming a federal judge because of his stance on trans rights.In 2023, Hyde-Smith blocked Colom, then a district attorney nominated to be a federal judge by President Joe Biden, from serving in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi because of his support for trans rights, per the Free Press. (Hyde-Smith also cited “significant support” for Colom from liberal philanthropist George Soros as weighing “heavily against his nomination.” The Mississippi Independent said Hyde-Smith’s claim was untrue, reporting that although Soros had promoted Colom as a candidate, neither he nor his campaign received direct funding.) Per the Free Press, Hyde-Smith took advantage of a Senate tradition in which a senator can block a judicial nominee from their home state by refusing to return a document known as a “blue slip” to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Roger Wicker, the senior senator from Mississippi, had approved Colom, but Hyde-Smith refused.“I visited with the District Attorney recently, and I recognize that he is smart and well liked in his district,” the Republican senator said in a statement at the time, per the Free Press. “However, there are a number of concerns I have regarding his record. As someone with a strong interes