Maria Cantwell will join filibuster of Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch

Wash­ing­ton’s junior Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell announced today that she will be join­ing her seat­mate Pat­ty Mur­ray and many oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors in fil­i­bus­ter­ing Don­ald Trump’s Supreme Court nom­i­nee Neil Gor­such as well as vot­ing no on his nom­i­na­tion should the fil­i­buster be broken.

“We need a U.S. Supreme Court jus­tice who will stand up for equal jus­tice for all,” Cantwell said in a state­ment. “I still have ques­tions and con­cerns about Judge Gor­such. There­fore, I can­not sup­port clo­ture and will not sup­port the con­fir­ma­tion of Judge Neil Gor­such to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Cantwell, who takes a method­i­cal approach to her work in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, met per­son­al­ly with Gor­such and read up on his record, study­ing many of the cas­es he was involved in to gain an under­stand­ing of his jurisprudence.

It’s clear from her full state­ment, repro­duced below, that she has been doing her research, which is what we’ve come to expect from her. Note Cantwell’s cita­tion of spe­cif­ic cas­es and her firm grasp of the con­se­quences of those cases.

I take very seri­ous­ly the solemn respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Sen­ate to pro­vide advice and con­sent on nom­i­na­tions to our fed­er­al courts.

If con­firmed, Judge Gor­such will have a life­time appoint­ment to the U.S. Supreme Court, and his impact on the lives of all Amer­i­cans can­not be overstated.

Judge Gor­such is com­mon­ly referred to as a pro­po­nent of orig­i­nal­ism and tex­tu­al­ism. He believes the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion should be inter­pret­ed by fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal inten­tions of those who draft­ed it as close­ly as pos­si­ble. While no one expects Judge Gor­such to reveal how he would rule on par­tic­u­lar cas­es, dur­ing his Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing he did not give Sen­a­tors enough back­ground about his judi­cial philosophy.

Gor­such told the Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee he rec­og­nizes pri­va­cy rights. How­ev­er, his ear­li­er writ­ings on unenu­mer­at­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al rights con­tra­dict this statement.

This con­tra­dic­tion rais­es ques­tions about what Judge Gor­such believes, and how and if he will pro­tect crit­i­cal pri­va­cy rights in the future.

I am also trou­bled by Judge Gorsuch’s deci­sion in the Indi­vid­u­als with Dis­abil­i­ties Edu­ca­tion Act (IDEA) case which was recent­ly reject­ed by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Gor­such ruled to lim­it edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. He had con­clud­ed that to com­ply with the law the school’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to the stu­dent was to make progress that was mere­ly no ‘more than de min­imis’ . The Supreme Court held that pub­lic schools dis­tricts must give stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make mean­ing­ful progress. This rul­ing impacts more than one hun­dred thou­sand stu­dents across Wash­ing­ton state.

Judge Gor­such has con­clud­ed Chevron vs. NRDC should be over­turned. This long-stand­ing prece­dent known as the Chevron doc­trine pro­vides that judges should defer to rea­son­able agency inter­pre­ta­tions of ambigu­ous statu­to­ry lan­guage. It allows agen­cies to get expert input for agency deci­sions and reg­u­la­tions. Over­turn­ing this doc­trine could make it eas­i­er for courts to over­turn impor­tant agency deci­sions pro­tect­ing pub­lic health and the environment.

Gor­such has also ruled against women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. He has fre­quent­ly sided with employ­ers over employ­ees and favored cor­po­rate inter­ests over pub­lic interests.

Many dif­fi­cult issues will come before the court in the months and years ahead. We need a U.S. Supreme Court jus­tice who will stand up for equal jus­tice for all. I still have ques­tions and con­cerns about Judge Gor­such. There­fore, I can­not sup­port clo­ture and will not sup­port the con­fir­ma­tion of Judge Neil Gor­such to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

We thank Sen­a­tor Cantwell for pledg­ing to fil­i­buster Neil Gor­such. We are call­ing on all Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors to do like­wise. Democ­rats should and must be unit­ed in oppo­si­tion to Gor­such’s nom­i­na­tion. Any Demo­c­rat who does not fil­i­buster Gor­such is enabling the right wing to com­plete its takeover of our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. They already have com­plete con­trol of the exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branch­es. But that is not enough: they now want con­trol of the judi­cia­ry as well.

Last year, Repub­li­cans refused to even hold hear­ings on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nom­i­nee for the Supreme Court — Mer­rick Gar­land. Gar­land was denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to even be con­sid­ered by the Sen­ate by Repub­li­cans, so Repub­li­cans have no grounds for com­plain­ing about Sen­ate Democ­rats block­ing Neil Gorsuch.

Democ­rats are mere­ly apply­ing the same stan­dard now.

<Begin Repub­li­can Logic>

It would sim­ply be inap­pro­pri­ate to pro­ceed with a con­fir­ma­tion vote now — there is elec­tion just beyond the hori­zon at which a third of the Sen­ate’s one hun­dred seats will be con­test­ed. The Sen­ate major­i­ty may change. Why not wait until after that elec­tion has been held? Would­n’t it be pre­ma­ture to con­sid­er Don­ald Trump’s nom­i­nee pri­or to that elec­tion, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that Trump is deeply unpop­u­lar accord­ing to pub­lic opin­ion research? Let vot­ers weigh in first.

</End Repub­li­can Logic>

On the Sen­ate floor today, Pat­ty Mur­ray deliv­ered a speech against Gor­such, which her office pro­vid­ed a tran­script of. Here’s what she said:

Pres­i­dent Trump is clear­ly focused on attack­ing women’s health care—so much so that he sent his women’s health advisor—Vice Pres­i­dent Pence—to break a tie on this lat­est dis­gust­ing attack on women’s health and care. It’s tru­ly appalling.

Women—and men—across the coun­try are watch­ing what is hap­pen­ing here, watch­ing what Repub­li­cans are try­ing to do, and they are pay­ing atten­tion. I wish today’s res­o­lu­tion was the only shame­ful attack on women’s health to talk about—but sad­ly, that’s not the case. So I want to take a few min­utes to talk about another—one that is crit­i­cal to women and fam­i­lies not just today, but for years and years to come. And that is the Supreme Court.

Last week, I announced I will be vot­ing against Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nom­i­na­tion to the Supreme Court. And, I will oppose a clo­ture motion end­ing debate. I didn’t reach this con­clu­sion light­ly. I con­sid­er my deci­sions about whether or not to sup­port a life­time appoint­ment to the Supreme Court to be among the most impor­tant and con­se­quen­tial choic­es I make as a Unit­ed States Senator.

But I made it, in part because this is not a nor­mal nomination—this process real­ly began 12 months ago, when Sen­ate Repub­li­cans refused to even con­sid­er Pres­i­dent Obama’s nom­i­nee to the Supreme Court, Judge Mer­rick Gar­land, and because, since Pres­i­dent Trump entered office, he has shown com­plete dis­re­gard for the law, for our Con­sti­tu­tion, and for the well­be­ing of fam­i­lies across our country—leaving me unable to trust that he is act­ing in our nation’s best inter­est, and unable to sup­port his choice for the Supreme Court.

But in addi­tion to my deep con­cerns about this process and this Admin­is­tra­tion — I also have strong con­cerns about this nom­i­nee specif­i­cal­ly. And today — as Repub­li­cans appear to be rush­ing Judge Gorsuch’s nom­i­na­tion through the Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee as fast as they can, I want to lay out why putting Judge Gor­such on the Supreme Court is an attack on women’s health, rights, and oppor­tu­ni­ty, one that has the poten­tial to undo decades of progress we have made toward ensur­ing women are equal­ly able to par­tic­i­pate in and con­tribute to our country.

The Trump Admin­is­tra­tion has bro­ken almost every one of its promis­es, but one it has cer­tain­ly kept is its promise to do every­thing in its pow­er to turn back the clock on women’s health and rights. And, extreme Repub­li­cans in Con­gress are doing the same—and have more in store. Right now, we’re debat­ing whether to undo a rule that pre­vents dis­crim­i­na­tion against fam­i­ly plan­ning providers based on the kinds of ser­vices they pro­vide to women.

Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans are already gear­ing up to attach rid­ers to the com­ing bud­get bills, in order to cut off access to crit­i­cal ser­vices at Planned Par­ent­hood for mil­lions of patients.

There are sim­i­lar attempts to under­mine women’s access to health care in cities and states nation­wide. And more often than we would like, the Supreme Court is going to be the place of last resort for pro­tect­ing women’s hard-fought gains.

If the buck has to stop with the Supreme Court on women’s health and rights, I do not want Judge Neil Gor­such any­where near the bench. Time and time again, Judge Gor­such has sided with the extreme right wing—and against the tens of mil­lions of women and men who believe that in the 21^st cen­tu­ry, women should be able to make their own choic­es about their own bod­ies. I’ll give just a few examples.

When the 10^th Cir­cuit ruled in the case of Hob­by Lob­by v. Bur­well that a woman’s boss could decide whether or not her insur­ance would include birth con­trol, Judge Gor­such didn’t just agree —he thought the rul­ing should have gone further.

That alone would be enough for me to oppose this nom­i­na­tion — but unfor­tu­nate­ly there is much more. Judge Gor­such has argued that birth con­trol cov­er­age includ­ed in the ACA as an essen­tial part of a woman’s health care, one that has ben­e­fit­ed 55 mil­lion women — is a “clear bur­den” on employ­ers that “would not long sur­vive.” And when it comes to Planned Parenthood—he has already weighed in on the side of defund­ing our nation’s largest provider of women’s health care.

What was his rea­son­ing? Judge Gor­such thought that in light of com­plete­ly dis­cred­it­ed sting videos tak­en by extreme con­ser­v­a­tives, women in the state of Utah should have a hard­er time access­ing care they need. Just this week, the mak­ers of those false videos got 15 felony charges. Women deserve inde­pen­dence and objec­tiv­i­ty in a Supreme Court Jus­tice, and that is clear­ly not it.

Attempts to con­trol women’s bod­ies aren’t always about repro­duc­tive rights. Sure enough, Judge Gor­such is on the wrong side here as well. He con­curred in a rul­ing against a trans­gen­der woman who was denied reg­u­lar access to hor­mone ther­a­py while she was in prison. This rul­ing reject­ed the idea that under our Con­sti­tu­tion, deny­ing health care ser­vices is cru­el and unusu­al punishment.

Think about that. That’s not the kind of judg­ment I want to see on the bench, M. Pres­i­dent — and I think most fam­i­lies would agree. I also want to be clear as well about what Judge Gorsuch’s nom­i­na­tion could mean for a women’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed right to safe, legal abor­tion ser­vices under the his­toric rul­ing in Roe v. Wade, which was reaf­firmed just last sum­mer by the court.

In his nom­i­na­tion hear­ings, Judge Gor­such wouldn’t give a clear answer on whether he would uphold this rul­ing, which has meant so much to so many women and fam­i­lies over the last four decades.

Judge Gor­such has donat­ed repeat­ed­ly to politi­cians who are dead-set on inter­fer­ing with women’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed health care deci­sions. And he has even made deeply inac­cu­rate com­par­isons between abor­tion and assist­ed sui­cide. I remem­ber the days before Roe v. Wade very clear­ly. I’ve heard the sto­ries of women faced with tru­ly impos­si­ble choic­es dur­ing those times.

Women from all across the coun­try have shared those deeply per­son­al expe­ri­ences because they know what it would mean to go back­wards. I know that mil­lions of women—who have already done so much to lead the resis­tance against this Admin­is­tra­tion and its dam­ag­ing, divi­sive agenda—are going to fight this nom­i­na­tion as hard as they can.

They know that the Trump Pres­i­den­cy will be dam­ag­ing enough for four years — but Judge Gorsuch’s nom­i­na­tion could roll back progress for women over a life­time. I’m proud to stand with them, do every­thing I can to make sure they are heard, loud and clear, here in the Sen­ate, and oppose Judge Gorsuch’s nom­i­na­tion in light of every­thing it would mean for women, now and for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Thank you and I yield the floor.

Thanks, Sen­a­tor Mur­ray, for mak­ing it abun­dant­ly clear that you’re opposed to rolling over and let­ting Sen­ate Repub­li­cans push through Neil Gor­such. We appre­ci­ate your stand­ing up for our val­ues at this crit­i­cal juncture.