Supreme Court confirmation fight going on in Raleigh as well as Washington
As the Senate Judiciary Committee opened its confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the confirmation fight held news conferences in Raleigh all day Monday to get their competing messages out.
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Each side accused the other of playing politics with a process that's supposed to be above that.
"Several of my colleagues have engaged in extreme hyperbole and described Judge Barrett’s nomination as an end to health care, abortion rights, labor rights, and the list goes on and on and on," said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, a member of the Judiciary Committee. "My Democratic friends decry the idea that a nominee has a predetermined outcome in mind while, in the same breath, demanding the nominee agree to their preferred outcome of a case. The hypocrisy is incredible."
"Democrats are getting desperate and putting politics ahead of the Constitution. They’re trying to delay Judge Barrett’s hearing," he said. "There’s no reason this hearing should not move forward."
But Rep. Darren Jackson, D-Wake, noted that the Trump administration has been trying to kill the ACA for four years – and other GOP officials for even longer.
"The Trump administration is working right now to strike it down in court with their hand-picked judges," said Jackson, the top Democrat in the state House. "That would leave millions of North Carolinians vulnerable without health insurance in the middle of this pandemic."
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Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, was a law school classmate of Barrett's and said she will make an excellent Supreme Court justice.
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