Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Monday night that he will oppose Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, and he urged the Senate to reject the nominee.
“I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have, and I hope a bipartisan majority will do the same,” Schumer said. “The stakes are simply too high for anything less.”
His statement came minutes after Trump announced that he would nominate Kavanaugh to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
Democrats don’t have the ability to block Trump’s nominee on their own; Republicans got rid of the 60-vote filibuster on Supreme Court nominations last year.
But Democrats are hoping to repeat a strategy that allowed them to defeat an ObamaCare repeal effort last year: keep their 49-member caucus united and win over at least two GOP senators.
Democrats have homed in on abortion and protections under the Affordable Care Act as issues that could unify their caucus and potentially persuade Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) to vote against Trump’s nominee.
Schumer added on Monday night that with Kavanaugh’s nomination, reproductive rights and healthcare protections are “on the judicial chopping block.”
“Judge Kavanaugh got the nomination because he passed this litmus test, not because he’ll be an impartial judge on behalf of all Americans,” Schumer said. “If he were to be confirmed, women’s reproductive rights would be in the hands of five men on the Supreme Court.”
“If Americans believe in a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices, and that health insurance companies shouldn’t be able to charge people more based on pre-existing conditions, now is the time to fight,” he added.