Sen. Klobuchar calls Amy Barrett “the opposite of RBG” to her face in fiery hearing speech
After providing one of the highlights of yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) was back in action for today’s edition of the hearing.
Today the Minnesota senator’s focus was on both the illegitimacy of even holding a confirmation hearing to confirm a justice when the more pressing issue of pandemic relief sits unaddressed as multitudes of Americans continue to contract the coronavirus and die.
Add to that the fact that we are in the midst of an election that will hopefully bring a new president with their own judicial nominees to the White House and you have a potent argument against even considering Barrett’s qualifications.
Senator Klobuchar made that point forcefully in the time allotted to her, questioning why the Senators were even meeting with Barrett at this moment while pointing out exactly what was on the line if she were to be confirmed.
"We shouldn’t be here right now.
We are in the middle of the pandemic, and people are sick.
We are in the middle of the election, and people are voting.And yet here we are stuck in a nomination hearing…[where] health care is on the line." —@AmyKlobuchar pic.twitter.com/eZlXuOPurf
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) October 14, 2020
Senator Klobuchar also explicitly summarized one of the main objections that everyone not already on board for Barrett’s confirmation has raised about confirming her to the seat that opened when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away: that her replacement with this acolyte of the late ultra-conservative jurist Antonin Scalia would seriously change the composition and political balance of the Supreme Court in a way that simply does not reflect the will of the American people.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar expresses concerns over balance on the Supreme Court, citing Amy Coney Barrett's past statements and actions: "These tracks lead us to one place and that is you will have the polar opposite judicial philosophy of Justice Ginsburg." https://t.co/fSSgN9dgtc pic.twitter.com/SZxUbkhoxJ
— ABC News (@ABC) October 14, 2020
With Justice Ginsburg dying wish being that the winner of the next election is allowed to name her replacement, the confirmation of her “polar opposite” to her vacant seat is the equivalent of spitting on the grave of the late legal legend.
Klobuchar and the other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are doing their best to fight the battle to prevent Barrett’s confirmation, but the mathematics of the GOP majority in the Senate means that unless four Republican senators defect and vote against the inexperienced judge — who was nonetheless shoved towards a nomination by the right-wing arbiters of reactionary justice, The Federalist Society — her ascension to the court is a done deal.
The only recourse the public has is to make the GOP senators aware of the political price they will pay if they take this misbegotten step and confirm RGB’s antithesis to a lifetime seat on what will soon devolve into a retrograde shadow of its former self.
Call your Senator today and let them know how you feel.
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