Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer and Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused “a number of” Republican-appointed Supreme Courtroom justices of mendacity to the Senate about their views of Roe v. Wade.
The highest congressional Democrats issued the sharply worded assertion castigating members of the excessive courtroom after Politico revealed a shocking leaked draft opinion displaying it’s poised to overrule the landmark 1973 abortion rights ruling.
“The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of many worst and most damaging selections in trendy historical past,” Schumer and Pelosi stated within the assertion.
“A number of of those conservative Justices, who’re by no means accountable to the American individuals, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Structure and defiled each precedent and the Supreme Courtroom’s popularity,” the 2 Democrats added.
Conservative justices ― together with Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch ― described Roe v. Wade as settled regulation of their affirmation hearings and urged they might respect precedent. They by no means explicitly dedicated to preserving Roe.
Kavanaugh personally assured Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in a personal assembly that he would hesitate to overturn longstanding selections like Roe.
“After I requested him whether or not it might be ample to overturn a long-established precedent if 5 present justices believed it was wrongly determined, he emphatically stated no,” Collins stated in 2018 earlier than voting to verify Kavanaugh.
Whereas Republicans criticized the leak of the draft opinion, which is unprecedented in trendy historical past, Democrats expressed outrage on the Supreme Courtroom’s preliminary determination to intestine abortion rights and once more referred to as on the Senate to eradicate the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade into regulation.
“The celebration of Lincoln and Eisenhower has now fully devolved into the celebration of Trump,” Schumer and Pelosi stated. “Each Republican Senator who supported Senator McConnell and voted for Trump Justices pretending that this present day would by no means come will now have to clarify themselves to the American individuals.”
