Merrick Garland Isnt the Only Reason the Democrats Should Filibuster Gorsuch

[babylonsister]

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

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images and Zach Gibson/Getty Images.


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.

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

[malaise]

1. Oh My!

Off to the greatest page for thee

Banish these women-hating morons

Please send this to Rachel andJoy

add

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R ......for visibility..nt

[Flo Mingo]

3. Kick

and rec

[Amaryllis]

4. He also refused to meet with Kamala Harris.

[mountain grammy]

5. I couldn't agree more.

As I watched the hearings, I began to wonder if he's human or some kind of Stepford judge. He really gave me the creeps. When the repubs were questioning, it was downright disgusting. Cruz was actually drooling.

No, this man should be nowhere near any court.

[spanone]

6. K&R...👍🏼

[Initech]

7. I want to give Mitch McConnell a middle finger.