Friends -

I returned to DC yesterday because the Senate is back in session.

You’d be right to assume that we’d come to focus on the current pandemic, but that’s not why we’re here. In fact, right now we’re not having any debates or votes on coronavirus legislation.

So why are we here? Mitch McConnell wants to pack the courts with more of his and Donald Trump’s unqualified cronies.

This is an outrage, and my Republican colleagues in the Senate need to hear from you.

Add your name: Demand Republicans stop trying to give unqualified judges lifetime appointments and instead focus on stopping this pandemic. In this crisis, our top priority must be saving lives and providing relief for families across our country.

Packing the federal courts has been a top priority for Republicans since Donald Trump took office, and I have fought them every step of the way.

Republicans are appointing unqualified idealogues whom they know will oppose any progressive ideas that come before them. That’s why I voted against 87 of Trump’s judicial appointments last year — more than any other Senator.

This time, they’ve nominated a 37-year-old whom The New York Times has called Mitch McConnell’s “protégé” for a lifetime appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the most important courts in the nation.

If that didn’t reek of cronyism enough already, just yesterday we learned that the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is requesting an independent ethics investigation into whether McConnell pushed another judge to retire in order to create this vacancy.

This must be stopped.

Tell Mitch McConnell: Do not proceed with this nomination process. We need the Senate to focus on the urgent crisis at hand — not partisan gamesmanship.

Republicans see that the next generation is more progressive than ever before. They know our ideas are winning in the court of public opinion, so their only hope is to fill the court with far-right idealogues who will try to stop our progress from the bench.

We cannot allow them to weaponize the judicial branch to further their partisan ideas. I need you to make your voice heard here to make sure they cannot quietly get away with this.

- Ed Markey

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