Biden urges Senate not to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court pick before election
Washington, Sep 26 (efe-epa).- The Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has said the Senate should not act on President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court until after the Nov.3 election.
In a statement on Friday, Biden said it was not the time to elect a nominee for the top court with the presidential election just weeks away and millions of Americans are already voting “because the stakes in this election could not be higher.”
“The American people know the US Supreme Court decisions affect their everyday lives. The United States Constitution was designed to give the voters one chance to have their voice heard on who serves on the Court,” he said.
“That moment is now and their voice should be heard. The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress.”
Biden’s statement came just after Trump announced his nomination of Judge Barrett, 48, to replace the late justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Her critics consider her a deeply conservative jurist and her nomination has stoked Democratic outrage that if confirmed, Americans would possibly lose abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act. Her confirmation would cement the conservative majority on the top court by 6-3.
The Catholic conservative judge has previously favored restricting abortion, an issue that particularly mobilizes the American Christian right, which forms the president’s significant electoral base.
Biden said Trump and the Republicans had been trying for years to throw out the Affordable Care Act, twice upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional
“Even now, in the midst of a global health pandemic, the Trump administration is asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the entire law, including its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. If President Trump has his way, complications from Covid-19, like lung scarring and heart damage, could become the next deniable pre-existing condition.”
He said Judge Barrett had a written track record of disagreeing with the US Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act and critiqued Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion upholding the law in 2012.
Earlier this week, Biden said Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell were doing an “exercise in raw political power” by pushing a nominee through the Senate before Election Day.
He recalled the controversy surrounding former President Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left by late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.
“Having made this their standard when it served their interest, they cannot, just four years later, change course when it does not serve their ends,” he argued. EFE-EPA
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