Hoyer Statement on the President's Supreme Court Nominee
“Sadly, but not surprisingly, President Trump has taken another unprincipled and polarizing action – one that is at odds with the principles stated by Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Lindsey Graham, and the Republican members of the U.S. Senate, who were so sanctimonious in 2016 in asserting that it would be wrong to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court in the last year of a President’s term. Their craven commitment to situational ethics remains ever apparent. “In 2016, Republicans argued that the people ought to have their voices heard. The people spoke, and more of them voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump. The Republican Senate didn’t care. Today, the polls clearly show that Donald Trump does not have the support of the majority of the people and will likely lose in November. Instead of waiting for the people to speak, Republicans don’t care; their former rationalizations be damned. Far-right, partisan power grabs are their only principle. They have spent nearly four years stacking the courts with ideological judges and justices. They have ignored the will of the people and pandered to their narrow, willful base. “Republicans continue to be focused on their obsession with taking health care security from the American people, including protections for pre-existing conditions, bringing down out-of-pocket costs, ensuring no annual or lifetime limits, allowing young people to stay on their parents’ policies, ensuring seniors are not priced out of getting health coverage, ensuring women are not charged extra because they are women, and many other protections included in the Affordable Care Act. The President and Republicans don’t care that all of these are supported by a majority of the American people; they hope to achieve defeat of the Affordable Care Act through stacking the Supreme Court while ignoring the will of the people. Nor do they care that the significant majority of the American people do not want a woman’s right to make her own choices when it comes to her reproductive health taken away. “Republicans seek to impose their will through the dictates of the Court, as they have failed to do so through the Congress, even though they have controlled all levers of government policy for many of the past twenty years. One could call it a judicial coup. “The American people deserve to have full faith in the integrity of the highest court of the land, and that cannot happen if Republicans jam this nomination through.”