Slate - "Neil Gorsuch Blew Off Meetings with Females Senators of Color. Not Cool."

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/04/democrats_decision_to_filibuster_gorsuch_has_legs_beyond_garland.html

Merrick Garland Isn’t the Only Reason the Democrats Should Filibuster Gorsuch

The judge’s treatment of female, minority senators should also give lawmakers pause.

By Dahlia Lithwick and Tobias Barrington Wolff

At first, the story seemed grossly hyperbolic: Two Democratic women of color in the Senate were claiming that Judge Neil Gorsuch had rebuffed their efforts to meet with him, the Huffington Post reported late last week. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada—Democrats who will vote on Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court this week—stated that Judge Gorsuch’s handlers had declined to honor meetings they had been attempting to schedule since February, despite multiple efforts. Really?

Yes, really. Senate staffers have now confirmed that both women were recently told the judge would not be made available for meetings with them.

Republicans are generating an impression of callous disregard for women of color in the United States Senate.
Judge Gorsuch’s path to the Supreme Court was always controversial, but as the whip count in the Senate makes manifest, it is also uncertain. It’s a full-on game of chicken now. The Democrats have the votes to filibuster as their counter to the Republicans’ abhorrent behavior around Merrick Garland. But as these revelations make clear, this is not the only way in which the Republicans have misbehaved. As Republican leaders in the Senate trip over themselves to rush a vote on the judge, they are writing off a large number of individual senators. Through their clumsiness—we will give them the benefit of the doubt that it is clumsiness—they are generating an impression of callous disregard for women of color in the United States Senate. To what possible end?

In Duckworth’s case, a meeting scheduled for last Wednesday was abruptly canceled and (she was told) could not be rescheduled before the vote. As Duckworth’s spokesperson Ben Garmisa told us, “Canceling a meeting while declining to offer any alternative times is an odd way for Judge Gorsuch to show his desire to meet with the senator.” Cortez Masto’s spokesperson Reynaldo Benitez has told Politico that several weeks of persistent efforts to get a meeting with the judge were flatly turned down when she sought to lock in a date last Thursday. “They literally said, give me a good reason why the judge should go sit down with the senator,” Benitez said.

snip....much more to read....and extremely angering.

[Dawson Leery]

1. Republicans: The Apartheid Party

[sharedvalues]

5. GOP: party of racism, hate, and the very wealthy

[synergie]

7. You left out the misogyny.

[iluvtennis]

11. Ding, ding, ding.

[furtheradu]

2. K & R..

This is unacceptable.
Surely all Dem Senators understand the seriousness of this insult.

[gratuitous]

3. "Give me a good reason why the judge should go sit down with the senator."

I realize that was (probably) not Judge Gorsuch personally, but that he would hire someone that ignorant and allow that person to speak to a senator's scheduler like that is sufficient to keep him off not only the high court, but any court.

[synergie]

8. I think enough has come out about this man's attitude towards women that it's

probably a safe bet to theorize that his hireling was catering to the boss' attitude.

[dalton99a]

4. This speaks volumes about Gorsuch as a human being.

Gorsuch is a major asshole.

[rogue emissary]

6. Even Gorsuch has "economic anxiety."

[JI7]

14. HHAHAHHAHAH

[BadgerMom]

9. Man, he's supercilious

TV commercials air now here in the LA area. Gorsuch preaches about his decisions being always about the law, never about the individual. I hate his pomposity. And I'm annoyed AF that a Supreme Court nominee is essentially running campaign ads that conclude with "call your Senator and tell them to vote to confirm Gorsuch." Yeah, no thanks.

[calimary]

10. Thoughtful of them, though, to include the number to call - to tell your Senator NOT to confirm him.

[SunSeeker]

13. LOL Yes indeed!

[SunSeeker]

12. K & R for exposure.

[marybourg]

15. Maybe he's like doing a Mrs. Butterworth

thing also. No meetings alone with women?