With Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett being in exactly one week, congressional Democrats are still hoping that the American voter will put enough pressure on their respective senators to derail the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee.
Florida Rep. Ted Deutch (D) appeared last week on ABC affiliate Local 10’s “This Week in South Florida,” where he accused Judge Barrett of wanting to “overturn the Affordable Care Act” and “rollback” abortion if and when she is confirmed to the court.
“He’s (Trump) going to have a nominee who wants to roll back protections on women’s reproductive rights,” said Rep. Deutch.
Deutch points to Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 call to delay President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, calling Sen. Rubio and Senate Republicans hypocrites for now wanting to “ram” Trump’s nominee down the throats of Americans.
Deutch then said that Republicans needed to “stand up for the Constitution, stand up for our Democracy,” adding that the Senate needed to “make sure the people have a say who this next Supreme Court Justice is going to be.”
According to Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the president is tasked with nominating a replacement for any vacancy to the Supreme Court, and there isn’t a defined time frame for him to make the nomination.
In other others, the president can nominate a Justice to the Supreme Court whenever he feels like.
Here’s the text:
“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
“We won the election. Elections have consequences,” Trump said about the Barrett nomination during the first of three presidential debates with former Vice President Joe Biden.
Deutch’s Republican congressional opponent, Jim Pruden, disagrees and told The Floridian that Trump “is not trying to take away healthcare” and instead “wants to reform” the controversial law so that the millions of Americans who “have been rendered uninsured” as a result of the ACA get coverage.
“As for President Trump's appointment to the Supreme Court, neither the President nor his selected candidate, Amy Barrett, have made a statement that women's reproductive rights were going to be rolled back,” said Pruden about Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. In fact, no candidate for a Supreme Court nomination has ever commented on prospective rulings even during the confirmation process as the judiciary never gives advisory opinions.”
Republicans have the votes to confirm Barrett, but their timetable for confirmation could be set back now that three Republican Senators have tested positive for COVID-19.
