Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden late Monday tore into Senate Republicans for the “rushed and unprecedented” confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court amid the election, pointing at its potentially damaging blow to health care provisions for millions of Americans as the high court prepares for a hearing on the Affordable Care Act.
“The rushed and unprecedented confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, in the middle of an ongoing election, should be a stark reminder to every American that your vote matters,” Biden said in a statement.
As Senate Republicans have pushed to quickly confirm Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Democrats and health care advocates have pointed at the newly-confirmed justice’s likelihood of voting to strike down what has become a key election issue amid the coronavirus pandemic — the Affordable Care Act, which protects the health care of at least 20 million people in the United States.
“Just a few days after Election Day next week, the Supreme Court will hear the case on the Affordable Care Act,” Biden said, adding that President Donald Trump has “been crystal clear” on his desire to wipe out the Obama-era health care policy.
During a CBS interview on “60 Minutes” that the President leaked last week, when asked about the policy of his predecessor, Trump said “I hope that they end it.”
“It will be so good if they end it because we will come up with a plan,” Trump told correspondent Lesley Stahl in the interview of his yet-to-be-achieved campaign goal of four years ago do away with the health care policy.
“This goal — the goal of the Republican Party for ten years — was a litmus test in selecting this nominee, regardless of the damage done to the U.S. Senate, to Americans’ faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, and to our democracy, and regardless of how the Affordable Care Act has protected hundreds of millions of people before and during the pandemic,” Biden said.
“Vote for a president, for Members of Congress, and candidates up and down the ticket who actually have a plan for health care, and who will build on the Affordable Care Act to expand coverage, bring down costs, and give you more choices,” the Democratic nominee said.
Closing with a more emotional tone, Biden urged voters to consider casting their ballot to honor “the legacy of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” whose death in September set off the hurried effort to replace her with the more ideologically conservative Barrett.
“She was proof that courage, conviction, and moral clarity can change not just the law, but also the world. Let us continue to be voices for justice in her name,” Biden said.
I don’t see an upside in bellyaching about Barrett. It was forgone conclusion she was going to the Court so why make news of it? Justice Barrett will be considered illegitimate by the majority of Americans as will the SCOTUS. Ms. Barrett will not be able to hold back her religion and will relish subjugating all of America under it. After all she believes God wants her to. In 2 years she won’t be safe walking down the street. She’ll be one of the unpopular people in the world and her evasive smugness as shown during her confirmation hearings will do her no good in fixing that.
She’ll either change or leave the Court within 5 years.
True. But not relevant to the future. The Democrats are now faced with the choice of (a) having the Supreme Court invalidate almost every advance made since the New Deal (I expect that the Civil Rights Act, labor laws, and administrative regulations will overturned on the grounds of “liberty” interests) and (b) engaging in a fight dividing Americans over changing the powers and/or expanding the Federal Courts.
My expectation is that we will have a combination of both. First, the Court will act to overturn popular laws, for example by holding at “religious liberty” allows a restaurant owner to exclude Blacks. Then there will be a brutal political fight over court reform. This may take at least two Presidential terms to accomplish, and will be impossible if the GOP were to regain either the Senate or the White House.
It gets votes and it prepares the battlefield for the upcoming showdown over expanding the courts.
If we win the Senate this year, and pick up more seats in 2022, I see it as an almost certainty that Biden will expand the courts. Possibly sooner. This is the value he has in only serving one term, he can do things without worrying about his re-election.
The problem with trying to rule the country via courts only, is courts are essentially a reactive force, not a proactive force… And they take a very real risk of getting too far out of the mainstream if they try too hard to be “proactively reactive”.
" The rushed and unprecedented confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, in the middle of an ongoing election, should be a stark reminder to every American that your vote matters,” Biden said.
Joe Biden gets both the tone and the substance just about right on this.
Hi! To find out what I can do, say
@discobot display help.