June 24, 2023

Dear Friends,

One year ago today, the Supreme Court handed down one of the most misguided and inexplicable decisions in the history of our nation. In their ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this handful of politicians in black robes overturned Roe v. Wade, nullified more than a half-century of precedent, and stripped the right to bodily autonomy from millions of Americans. Because of the Court’s actions, young women in this country have less control over their own bodies than their mothers and grandmothers enjoyed. This is the kind of authoritarian backsliding one might expect in a draconian dictatorship, not in the United States of America.

We are already seeing the devastating impact of this disastrous decision. Within the past year, 20 states have passed legislation that heavily restricts or outright eliminates access to abortion, forcing some people to travel hundreds of miles to access critical care. And as doctors describe an “impossible choice” between providing desperately needed medical care or following these extreme new laws, women across our nation are facing harrowing ordeals. One woman in Florida almost died after doctors were forced to deny her care despite the fact that she was experiencing life-threatening complications after her water broke more than six weeks ahead of when her fetus could have survived on its own. This is just one of countless similar stories from our post-Roe reality, many of which remain untold.

This Supreme Court has clearly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted even to adhere to their own precedents, much less to safeguard the rights and the safety of our most vulnerable citizens. In the same term in which they overturned Roe, determining that states have the right to dictate their citizens’ private personal health choices, this Court struck down common-sense concealed carry restrictions in New York, declaring that states do not have the right to implement lifesaving gun safety measures.  And that same month, the Supreme Court handed a big win to special interests and polluters in a decision that gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Once upon a time, Americans could be confident that even if they disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling, the justices who decided the case had formed their opinions in good faith. But now, with investigations revealing several instances in which right-wing justices accepted luxury gifts from billionaires and other special interests with cases before the Court, we no longer have even that assurance.

In recent months, reporting has unearthed details of the relationship between Justice Clarence Thomas and billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who treated Justice Thomas and his wife to an extravagant island-hopping vacation and even paid for private school tuition for Justice Thomas’ grandnephew. A separate investigation just this week revealed that Justice Samuel Alito accepted a luxury fishing trip from Paul Singer, another right-wing billionaire with business before the Court. In defending this serious ethical violation and his failure to recuse himself from cases involving Singer, Justice Alito only argued lazily that his seat on Singer’s private jet “would have otherwise been vacant.”

Fundamentally divorced from precedent and the will of the people and now tainted by the stain of corruption, this Court is rapidly losing credibility in the eyes of millions of Americans. Congress must act to not only consider reforms for this broken institution, but also to counteract some of its calamitous recent rulings. To that end, I’ve been proud to support bold legislative action to defend the right of all Americans to control their own bodies and freely make choices about their reproductive futures.

Within a month of the reversal of Roe, I joined my fellow House Democrats to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, to codify Roe v. Wade into law, the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act, to reaffirm the right to travel freely throughout the country to access abortion care, and the Right to Contraception Act, to establish a federal statutory right to obtain and use contraceptives. With Republicans still threatening a nationwide abortion ban, we must remain vigilant in our efforts to protect bodily autonomy.

With its devastating Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court showed us that it is unaccountable to the will of the people or to its own precedents, answering only to the wealthy special interests who helped install the Court’s right-wing supermajority. Going forward, I will not stand idly by as this radical Court turns back the clock on our freedoms. We must take action to not only rein in the excesses of this Court, but also to protect the fundamental rights of millions of Americans.

As always, thank you for reading.

Your friend,

DID YOU KNOW?

My office and I are working to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates and recommendations from federal agencies. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:

• The summer travel season is upon us, and as such, the State Department is attempting to work through an immense backlog of passport applications.
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently stated that the State Department is receiving an unprecedented 500,000 passport applications per week, a 30-40% increase from this time last year.
• Because of this increased backlog, the Department of State is advising individuals seeking to travel who need to update their passport to apply as early as possible.
• If you are planning to travel—don’t wait, check your passport expiration date!
  • In most cases, your passport must be valid at least 6 months past the return date of your trip.
• For general information on passports, click HERE.
  • For information on how to apply for a passport, click HERE.
  • For information on how to renew your existing passport, click HERE.
  • For information on country-specific passport validity requirements, click HERE.
• I encourage you to contact my office at (518) 465-0700 if you:
  • Have an emergency and must travel outside the country
  • Have not received your passport within two weeks of your travel date
  • Have questions that cannot be answered by the resources at Travel.State.Gov
• Our office cannot guarantee a positive outcome, but we will do all we can to assist within current laws, rules, and policies.