Harris slams GOP for trying to ‘jam through’ Supreme Court nominee at hearing
Sen. Kamala Harris blasted the confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as 'illegitimate'
Sen. Kamala Harris blasted Republicans for attempting to “jam through” the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court against the backdrop of a pandemic and election.
Monday was the start of the confirmation hearings for Barrett who was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the High Court. The vice presidential Democratic candidate took issue with what she perceived was the derelict of duty to prioritize the court rather than helping to remedy the ongoing pandemic.
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Harris appeared remotely to deliver her remarks.
“This hearing has brought together more than 50 people to sit inside a room for hours while our nation faces a deadly airborne virus,” Harris said.
The California senator stressed that the American people should be the ones to decide the replacement for Ginsburg. In many parts of the country, ballots have already been cast.
“More than 9 million Americans have already voted and millions more will vote while this illegitimate committee process is underway. A clear majority of Americans want whomever wins this election to fill the seat,” Harris said.
“And my Republican colleagues note that, yes, they are deliberately defying the will of the people and their attempts to rollback the rights and protections provided under the Affordable Care Act,” Harris said.
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Harris accused her Republican colleagues of also being more animated to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Barrett has previously expressed her reservations with the landmark healthcare law.
“Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute. He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power,” she wrote as a University of Notre Dame law professor as part of a 2017 law review essay.
Harris believed that the appointment of Barrett to the Supreme Court would put the ACA in danger.
“Republicans finally realized that the Affordable Care Act is too popular to repeal in Congress. So now they are planning to bypass the will of the voters and have the Supreme Court do their dirty work,” Harris said.
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