Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout says Senate Democrats can still block the confirmation of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, if they use every possible procedural method available to them to slow and frustrate the process. “A Barrett confirmation is a catastrophe,” Teachout says. “A 6-3 majority on the court is basically a bomb coming at what is left of our protections against corruption in politics, against corporate money, against what is left of the Voting Rights Act.”
AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to leave, but we wanted to get to Part 2 of this conversation, and that’s not about Google, but about Supreme Court justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett. In today’s headlines, we said that the Associated Press has revealed Supreme Court nominee Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of a private Christian school which barred openly gay teachers, effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents. Trinity Schools runs schools in Indiana, Minnesota, in Virginia, affiliated with the secretive religious group People of Praise, of which Barrett is a longtime member. That’s just the latest news. The schools teach that homosexuality is abomination against God. You have urged Senate Democrats to use every procedure possible to block her confirmation. Why?
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT: A Barrett confirmation is a catastrophe. We don’t know a fraction about her. This is like getting married in three weeks, except it’s not getting married, it’s choosing somebody who’s going to govern us, effectively, decide the rules of our democracy, the rules governing our bodies, the rules governing our intimate relationships, for 50 years. And we don’t actually need to know that much to know that a 6-3 majority on the court is basically a bomb coming at what is left of our protections against corruption in politics, against corporate money, what is left of the Voting Rights Act. I mean, this is an absolute 5-, 10-alarm fire catastrophe.
And the Democrats have not been, for instance, denying unanimous consent at every single vote, forcing McConnell to deliver every single senator every single moment. There’s techniques that have already — opportunities that have already passed. For instance, the Democrats could have had week-by-week continuing resolutions to keep the government going, forcing McConnell to produce his vulnerable senators. And there will be moments coming up this Thursday.
But what I hear from the Democrats is, “Well, that isn’t sure to work or isn’t likely to work.” That is not the question. If there is a one-in-500 chance that a two-hour delay caused by impeachment, let alone a day delay caused by impeachment, of Bill Barr, for instance, would lead to enough disruption that enough Republican senators would say, “McConnell, you’re asking too much. I’m not going to be there for you,” then we wouldn’t be leading into this catastrophe.
So, I think we really need to see, in these last few days, Democrats aligned on a very clear message about the whole, the altogether illegitimacy of this process and the catastrophic danger of this nomination.
Please go here for the original interview, transcript, and additional links: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/10/21/zephyr_teachout_amy_coney_barrett
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