Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday night he has “serious doubts” about whether President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee will administer justice equally to the rich and poor alike, and joined other Democrats who were left asking if Gorsuch can show he’s a mainstream nominee.
“Given his record, I have very serious doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard,” Schumer said of Trump’s nominee, 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch. “Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women’s rights, and most troubling, hewed to an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent Justice on the court.”
Schumer stopped just short of saying Democrats would oppose his nomination from the outset, but said they would heavily scrutinize his record and leave no stone unturned.
“Make no mistake, Senate Democrats will not simply allow but require an exhaustive, robust, and comprehensive debate on Judge Gorsuch’s fitness to be a Supreme Court Justice,” he said.
The Supreme Court fight, Schumer said, is even more important after President Trump’s new executive order temporarily halting immigration and travel from seven countries.
“The new administration has violated our separation of powers, and tested the very fabric of our Constitution in an unprecedented fashion,” he said. “It is clear that the Supreme Court will be tried in ways that few Courts have been tested since the earliest days of the Republic, when constitutional questions abounded.”
Schumer also not so subtly pressed Senate Republicans to keep the 60-vote threshold to move a nominee in place, despite pressure from Trump and others to go “nuclear” and change the chamber’s rules to allow a simple 51-vote majority for confirmation.
“The Senate must insist upon 60-votes for any Supreme Court nominee, a bar that was met by each of President Obama’s nominees,” he said. A 60-vote threshold would mean Republicans need to pick up at least eight Democrats in order to advance the nominee.
Before President Trump had finished announcing Gorsuch as his choice to fill the high court vacancy, the Democratic National Committee released a lengthy statement that raised “serious questions” about his nomination.
“Gorsuch spent his career representing big corporate clients against the interests of ordinary Americans and consistently ruling against workers in favor of big businesses,” the DNC said.
The DNC took issue with rulings allowing employers to deny health insurance based on religious objections to abortion and certain forms of contraception and others they said failed to protect Planned Parenthood funding from “Republican interference.”
“We cannot afford a Supreme Court justice who doesn’t have the utmost respect for constitutional values of liberty, equality and justice for all,” the DNC said.
Rather than focus on Gorsuch’s record, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., highlighted a series of recent Supreme Court decisions that he said have been “disastrous” for the country, including the Citizens United campaign finance ruling, its decision to annul a portion of the Voting Rights Act, and others that he said “stymied efforts to combat global warming.”
“The stakes are very high. It is imperative that a new justice be prepared to defend the rights of all Americans, not just the wealthy and large corporations,” he said. “Our next Supreme Court justice must vote to protect American democracy and keep campaigns free of the corrupting influence of big money, treat workers fairly, safeguard liberties for women and minorities, protect religious freedom and to safeguard the privacy rights of citizens.”
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a liberal Democrat, also decried the Gorsuch nomination, arguing that it represents “a breathtaking retreat from the notion that Americans have a fundamental right to constitutional liberties, and harkens back to the days when politicians restricted a people’s rights on a whim.”
Wyden specifically took issue with Gorsuch’s opposition to assisted suicide. “No senator who believes that individual rights are reserved to the people, and not the government, can support this nomination,” he said.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who is more centrist than many of his Democratic colleagues, expressed skepticism about the direction of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts and its tendency, in his view, to favor “big corporations at the expense of our workers and middle-class families.”
When it comes to Gorsuch, Casey said only that he will “thoroughly review” his record, “particularly his appellate decisions and his answers to questions during the hearing and those submitted in writing afterward.”
