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Friend—I wanted to make sure you saw this email. We have just days until the final vote on Trump's Supreme Court nominee. We're doing one final push to the Senate to demand that representatives do everything possible to stop the vote. And if the vote happens, we're jumping right into work to reform the Court to stop its extremist activism.
Dear Friend,
BREAKING: Senator Lindsey Graham just pushed Amy Coney Barrett's nomination through by a vote without a single Democrat in attendance.
Graham held the vote even though it broke his own committee rule requiring members of the minority vote to be present to conduct official business.1
Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will obviously stop at nothing to get Donald Trump’s nominee on the Supreme Court, and now the final floor vote is set for Monday. Today our coalition delivered more than 3 million signatures—of which were from Demand Progress members like you—urging senators to stop this confirmation process.
This is our absolute last opportunity to stop Trump and McConnell from packing the Supreme Court, and we need to push senators to pull out all the stops. Will you rush an emergency donation?
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The 10 Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee boycotted the hearing, protesting that the vote was being rushed and that McConnell had violated his own precedent by muscling through this nomination when he refused to consider President Obama’s nominee for more than seven months.2
If confirmed next Monday, Barrett will almost certainly undermine our democracy during the election. Just this week, the Supreme Court gave us a preview of how that could happen.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled against Pennsylvania Republicans who were trying to throw out any ballot returned after Election Day, even if the ballot was mailed before or on November 3. In other words, these legislators wanted to throw out ballots that the US Postal Service—which has been slowed down by Trump’s postmaster general—didn’t deliver on time, possibly disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters.3
The Supreme Court ruled with the lower court, saying that the state must count ballots that were cast up until Election Day, even if they are received in the few days after. But the ruling was a 4–4 decision, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh siding with the legislators wanting to throw out ballots.
With Barrett on the Court, there would almost certainly be a clear majority in favor of disenfranchising voters. With millions of ballots in the mail right now, and COVID-19 throwing a wrench into how the polls are operating, the outcome of this election could rest entirely in Barrett’s hands.
To have any chance of preventing Barrett’s nomination, Senators will need to use every tool available to slow Senate business down to a crawl. We know that the odds of that are very slim, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.
And even if Barrett is confirmed, this fight isn't over by a long shot. We need to jump in right away to change the narrative that Court reform is "packing" and work to return the Supreme Court to a branch that works for the people.
This is a five-alarm emergency, and we can’t let Monday’s vote happen without doing everything possible to stop Barrett’s confirmation. We'll be pushing calls and emails all weekend. And if Barrett is confirmed, we'll start work to reform the Court and correct this massive problem. But we need your help to sustain the pressure.
Thanks for standing with us.
Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress
Sources:
1. The New York Times, "Republicans Advance Barrett’s Supreme Court Nomination Over Democratic Boycott," October 22, 2020
2. Ibid.
3. Slate, "The Supreme Court’s Ultraconservatives Are Preparing a Radical Assault on American Democracy," October 20, 2020
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