Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declared Monday night that he will oppose Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat and that “now is time to fight” the nominee.
“The Senate has come together on a bipartisan basis to protect women’s reproductive rights and to protect health care for millions of Americans before — including those with pre-existing conditions. We need to do it again,” Schumer said in a statement.
“I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have, and I hope a bipartisan majority will do the same. The stakes are simply too high for anything less.”
“If Americans believe in a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices, and that health insurance companies shouldn’t be able to charge people more based on pre-existing conditions, now is the time to fight,” Schumer said. “I’m calling on Americans from all walks of life to make their voices heard from now until the end of this battle.”
[WATCH: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh answers Chuck Schumer on Roe v. Wade at his 2006 confirmation hearing]
The New York Democrat added that his hope is for a “more independent, moderate selection” for Kennedy’s seat that could earn bipartisan support.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoed Schumer’s call to oppose Kavanaugh. In a statement, she called the selection a “clear and disrespectful assault” on healthcare and abortion rights.
“The President’s selection is a clear and disrespectful assault on the fundamental rights of women and on the quality, affordable health care of the American people,” Pelosi said. “Judge Kavanaugh’s long history of opposition to the full, fundamental right of every woman to make her own decisions about her body, family and health care poses a grave threat to women’s rights and to our Founders’ promise of liberty and justice for all.”
““The Senate must subject the Kavanaugh nomination to rigorous scrutiny before holding a vote on sending him to the highest court in the land,” Pelosi continued. “We stand with the American people in opposing any efforts to install a radical vote against women’s freedom and families’ health care on the Court.”
Kavanaugh’s nomination is expected to be met with widespread opposition within Democratic ranks. Earlier Monday, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., announced that he would oppose the nomination no matter the nominee as long as they were on a pre-approved list of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.
The White House earlier Monday invited a group of five Democratic senators — including four red-state Democrats — to the White House for the nomination ceremony. Among those, three Senate Democrats — Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., supported Justice Neil Gorsuch’s nomination last April.
