(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Assistant Democratic Leader and top Democrat on the Senate health committee, issued the following statement upon President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the U.S. Supreme Court seat recently left vacant after the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“President Trump has told us repeatedly what he wants in a justice: a jurist who above anything else is committed to gutting health care through the courts and ending safe, legal abortion in the United States of America.
“Make no mistake, a vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who meets President Trump’s tests is a vote to take away people’s health care and vital rights. I oppose this nomination in the strongest terms, just like I’ve opposed other nominees this President has selected with the goals of pushing the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, dismantle affordable health care, and eliminate pre-existing conditions protections, and rolling back hard-fought rights that have made our country more just and equal.
“It is already clear the American people see straight through President Trump and Senate Republicans’ brazenly hypocritical rush to fill this seat as people are already casting their ballots in an election that is just 38 days away—even as they refuse to work on serious relief for families and communities struggling in a pandemic that has cost more than 200,000 American lives and shuttered our economy.
“I’m going to do all I can to fulfill Justice Ginsburg’s last wish, and I call on people in Washington state and across the country: raise your voice against this nomination so powerfully that President Trump and his party will have no choice but to listen.”