It is less than three weeks before the presidential election, but Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are pressing ahead with their plan to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices.
If their ploy to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett on a near party line vote succeeds, they will establish a 6-3 majority that will set the stage for undermining desperately needed protections of working people for years to come. A lopsided conservative majority could quickly overturn the Affordable Care Act, undermining the health care of tens of millions of Americans.
We have seen a widening of inequality―made even worse by the COVID-19 pandemic which has been utterly mismanaged by the Trump administration. Our country needs Supreme Court justices who will not further stack the deck against people with low incomes, racial, ethnic or religious minorities, or people with disabilities. We have serious concerns about Judge Barrett’s previous rulings and statements in five main areas: access to health care, immigration, workers’ rights, anti-discrimination, and criminal justice.
It is unacceptable that Mitch McConnell and Senate leadership are ramming through this confirmation for Judge Barrett just three weeks before Election Day. Meanwhile, the Senate Leadership has refused, time and again, to take action on an adequate COVID-19 relief bill.
The real urgency before the Senate is responding to the needs of millions of people who are threatened by the disease itself and its economic repercussions.
Consider these facts: Nearly half of all Americans are in households that have lost income from work because of the pandemic; one in five households with children are behind on their rent; 11.6 million people in households with children are not getting enough to eat.
But instead of focusing on these dire needs, Mitch McConnell and Senate leadership are all too happy to ram through Trump’s replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit engineered to invalidate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on November 10, just one week after the election. Confirming Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court will make that dangerous possibility of overturning the ACA all too likely.
Striking down this critical health care law would strip access to health care from millions of people and end the law’s protections for the more than 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions, including more than 7 million Americans who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Overturning the ACA would have a devastating and disproportionate impact on low-income communities, communities of color, women, children, and people with disabilities.
The Human Needs Report is CHN’s newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and other vulnerable populations.
