Rep. Speier Response to Senate GOP's Sham SCOTUS Confirmation

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 -- Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, issued the following statement:

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Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA-14), co-chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus, issued the following statement after Senate Republicans' confirmed Judge Amy Coney Barrett for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"With just eight days to go until Election Day and nearly 63 million Americans having already cast their ballots, the Senate has rammed through President Trump's Supreme Court nominee in their fight to deprive Americans of access to health care, reproductive freedom, women's rights, civil rights, voter protections, and much more for decades to come.

"They have done this at a time when our country is experiencing record-breaking numbers of COVID infections and desperately needs Senator McConnell and his Republican colleagues to focus on passing the House's aid package or work with Democrats to help an estimated 8 million people pushed into poverty, 17 million food insecure children, more than 23 million workers on unemployment, and nearly one million women driven from the workforce in September alone.

"Instead, the Senate convened this weekend and voted to limit debate on the approval of Judge Amy Coney Barrett despite her unwillingness or inability to answer basic questions put to her during her sped-up confirmation hearing. Her record, however, speaks for itself:

* Shortly before she became a judge, Barrett was critical of Chief Justice Roberts' 2012 opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act, suggesting that she would vote to invalidate the ACA, including its protections for those with preexisting conditions and insurance coverage for 20 million Americans. Tragically, the Supreme Court will consider a challenge to the ACA just one week after the election;

* As a judge, Barrett considered three laws restricting abortion rights and would have upheld those restrictions. She has suggested Roe is an "erroneous decision" and signed an ad calling the ruling "barbaric." In her written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee, she refused to answer whether abortion should be considered punishable by death. This issue could not be more urgent. If Roe is overturned, abortion could become illegal in 22 states and forty-one percent of women of childbearing age would see the nearest abortion clinic close;

* She has voted to uphold racial discrimination, holding that a supervisor calling his employee a racial slur does not create a hostile workplace and allowing a decision to stand which held that assigning employees to locations based on race was not against the law;

* She has made it harder for colleges and universities to hold their students responsible for sexual assault;

* She has refused to answer whether voter intimidation is illegal, and declined to recuse herself from a case regarding the November 3 Presidential election; and

* She has refused to say whether the Supreme Court cases affirming equal rights for LGBTQ Americans were correctly decided.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of Barrett's regressive record. This rushed, sham process led by Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans has left the next Congress no choice but to explore all possible options to restore integrity to the Supreme Court and to protect the rights of all Americans."