Jody Baldwin Stone of Rhode Island asks a question of huge importance to the Constitutional wellbeing of the United States of America:

RI Jurnos: Is it true that Judge McConnells daughter,
Catherine McConnell, was appointed by Biden and is currently employed by The Department of Education? Did the judges order save his daughter’s job? This is what is being reported.

To be clear, McConnell’s ruling relates to a pause on grants to states and other organizations.  Changes to the Dept. of Education, meanwhile, appear so far to be limited to some external contracts and personnel hired before Ms. McConnell arrived in the agency.  Thus, it might be more immediately relevant that Judge McConnell is on the board of Crossroads Rhode Island, which has received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the federal government.

Nonetheless, further scrutiny of the DOE is expected, perhaps to the extent of effectively eliminating the department.  If the two people are, indeed, father and daughter, therefore, Judge John J. McConnell risk of a Constitutional crisis would be in the vanguard of a push to tie the President’s hands in a way that directly benefits his own family.

Catherine McConnell’s LinkedIn page doesn’t make the familial connection, although it is certainly suggestive that her work record includes a year with Rhode Island’s Office of Postsecondary Commissioner and two years in the office of former Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo (who went on to be Commerce Secretary under Biden).

According to VoterRecords.com, Catherine Shea McConnell registered to vote in 2006, which is the same year the Dept. of Education Catherine departed for her undergraduate work at Brandeis, per LinkedIn.  The website lists her address at the time in Providence and provides a link for “detailed records” placing her in Washington, D.C.

Zillow puts the same Providence house — covering two lots across two very desirable streets — at $3.3 million.  The city’s valuation puts it at “only” $2.5 million and, oddly, lists the owner as “private,” protecting his identity by some unique process.  (Neither immediate neighbor receives this courtesy, for instance.)  Nonetheless, the city’s GIS tool identifies the property as owned by John J. McConnell Jr., which is the judge’s full name.  I can also confirm from listings previously received from the RI Secretary of State that somebody of the judge’s name voted by mail in Rhode Island’s special election in 2023, as did an apparent spouse and son, both of whom include “Shea” in their email addresses.  (All are Democrats, naturally.)

The address is also confirmed through state and federal campaign finance reports, including connecting Catherine with the address in 2021 and identifying the Postsecondary Commissioner as her employer.  Searchable state records go back to 2002, and from that point through 2010, McConnells at the address donated $155,975 to Rhode Island Democrats.  John, himself, appears to have stopped donating in March 2009, the month before Democrat Senator Jack Reed agreed to put him up for a judgeship under President Obama.  He was nominated in May 2010 and appointed in May 2011.

The first result for John J. McConnell, Jr., donating federally was in 1993.  From that point through 2010, members of the household donated $797,749 to Democrats.  Conspicuous on the list are two donations totaling $38,500 made by John and his wife to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees in mid-2008.

So, the given evidence suggests that, yes, a Rhode Island judge did make an extremely high-profile and predictably controversial ruling that involved him in the operation of the executive branch of the federal government after a change election, and this action has immediate implications for his daughter’s employment by an executive agency known to be on the administration’s list for review.  Emails sent to both people received no reply within two hours; I will update this post (and/or write additional posts) if that changes.

Regardless of the direct connection, however, these facts certainly contribute to the sense of the incestuous development of an aristocratic Democrat Party spreading wealth among connected partisans who take jobs from which they can implement policies and rulings that favor the party’s ideology and its self interests.

(As a small kicker, note that McConnell was also the judge who came to the rescue of the teachers union president in Tiverton, Amy Mullen, when the district tried to fire her.  Note the “Resist” sticker on her laptop in the picture accompanying this related WJAR story.)

ADDENDUM (12:57 p.m. 11Feb2025):

Shortly after this post went live, I noticed that Catherine McConnell’s LinkedIn page now lists her as a “former senior policy advisor” for the DOE. It appears this change was made no earlier than yesterday, and if it had changed when I began writing this post this morning, I didn’t notice it.