Duckworth, Durbin denounce Trump court pick
Obamacare threatened by Amy Coney Barrett — on top of Senate GOP hypocrisy
President Trump presents Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his new nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court Saturday at the White House. (Instagram/White House)
By Ted Cox
The state’s two U.S. senators immediately lined up against President Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee — as well as the very notion that the Senate would confirm a justice just weeks before the general election.
Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin both issued formal statements after Trump nominated U.S. Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Saturday to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died the week before.
Duckworth and Durbin both took issue not only with Barrett’s positions on issues like the Affordable Care Act, but also on Senate Republicans’ rush to confirm her after refusing to even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court months ahead of the election four years ago.
“With barely a month before Election Day, Americans across the country are already casting their ballots to select our next president, the majority of whom think the person elected on Nov. 3 should select the next Supreme Court nominee,” Duckworth said in a formal statement issued Saturday. “The deadly COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 200,000 Americans in a matter of months. Yet, instead of addressing the many life-and-death issues facing working families during COVID-19, Trump and the Senate Republicans are focused on jamming through this nomination in a transparent grab for power so they can achieve their long-sought goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act and ripping away health care from millions — including every COVID-19 survivor who now has a pre-existing condition.”
“We are 38 days from Election Day,” Durbin added in a statement issued Monday. “And we are 45 days from the Supreme Court taking up the case that will decide whether the Affordable Care Act will survive. President Trump and Majority Leader McConnell want to rush Judge Barrett’s nomination through the Senate before those two dates arrive.”
Four years ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow even hearings on Garland’s nomination, insisting the issue should be left up to the voters in an election year.
Garland was nominated to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Feb. 13 of that year.
But McConnell has said he intends to push ahead with Barrett’s nomination ahead of the Nov. 3 election — as voters across the nation are already casting ballots by mail and in early voting — even as polls show an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters think the choice should be made by the winner in Trump’s reelection bid against former Vice President Joe Biden.
“It is clear why Republicans have reversed their position from 2016 about giving the American people ‘a voice’ in filling an election-year vacancy,” Durbin stated. “They want another vote on the Supreme Court for their lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act — eliminating health insurance for millions, ending protections for people with preexisting conditions, and raising costs for millions more — in the middle of a pandemic.
“John McCain stopped Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act on the Senate floor,” he added. “Now they are trying to accomplish in the Supreme Court what they could not accomplish in Congress. That’s why President Trump made clear he would only put forward a nominee who would overturn the Affordable Care Act.”
Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion preserving the national health-insurance program commonly known as Obamacare in a key 2012 ruling. In 2017, just months before Trump appointed her to the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, she wrote in an academic journal at her own University of Notre Dame Law School that Roberts’s opinion “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”
According to Durbin, “What’s at stake with this nomination is the fate of affordable, quality health care and preexisting-conditions protections for millions of Americans.”
Duckworth said that was only the beginning of her objections with Barrett’s record. “The stakes could not be higher,” she said. “If Republicans insist on confirming Judge Barrett, the court could roll back women’s reproductive rights, greenlight more dark money in politics, jeopardize voting rights and civil rights for Black and Brown communities, and knock down any progress on climate action. I voted against confirming Amy Coney Barrett to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit because she failed to demonstrate the capability or willingness to serve as an impartial, fair, and independent jurist. Judge Barrett was not fit to be a circuit judge in 2017, and she is the wrong choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court today. Once again, she will not have my support.”
U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Chicago chimed in, calling Barrett’s nomination “ a rushed political charade in an electoral year,” and adding, “Barrett’s extreme views will roll back gains on health care and women’s rights. Judge Barrett has a track record of extremely conservative views that would erase the progress Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg achieved for gender equality, workplace protections, and civil rights.
“We are in a global pandemic that Trump has mismanaged and even denied,” he added. “COVID-19 has killed more than 200,000 people in our country. Yet, Amy Coney Barrett believes the Affordable Care Act, which has given millions of Americans access to health care, should be overturned. Barrett does not believe in a women's reproductive freedom, stating that she could envision the court undermining Roe v. Wade in a way that would give states leeway to make it harder for a woman to obtain an abortion. In 2017, Barrett refused to hear a case aboutworkplace racial segregation in a Chicago business that assigned workers to different stores based on race. These are just some examples of where Judge Barret stands on issues that are crucial to my community.”
Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which celebrated Ginsburg’s legal legacy last week, also expressed public concern about her position on abortion rights. “The Trump-Pence administration has been consistent in its drive to systematically strip Americans of access to health care,” said Jennifer Welch, president of Planned Parenthood Illinois Action, in a statement. “They have repeatedly attempted to overturn the Affordable Care Act and restrict reproductive health care, including abortion. Now, by rushing to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat in the final months of his administration, President Trump is putting his thumb on the scales of justice for generations to come. Nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has a record of extreme opinions on abortion, further demonstrates Trump’s unrelenting plan to take away our most fundamental rights.
“Justice Ginsburg was a fierce fighter for gender equality, and her seat is the people’s seat,” Welch added. “The 2020 election is already underway and voters across the nation have begun casting their votes, including in Illinois. Their voices must be heard.
"This nomination is dangerous and unethical. Justice Ginsburg’s vacancy should not be filled before the 2021 inauguration.”