Democrats are refighting the war that helped them pick up seats in 2018 by focusing on the threat to health care.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee know that, barring something unexpected, they lack the votes to block President Donald Trump from installing his third justice in four years on the Supreme Court and creating a 6-3 conservative majority. They also know that, in a normal year, by mid-October Congress would be out of session and members home campaigning. But 2020 is obviously no normal year. So, while the rest of Congress is home, Democratic Judiciary members are trying something very different in the hearings for nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Rather than prosecuting their case against Barrett, currently a federal appeals court judge, they are refighting the war that helped them pick up seats in 2018 — banging on Republicans for trying to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Conveniently, the ACA is relevant to the Supreme Court debate because the justices are scheduled to hear a case that could invalidate the law on Nov.10 — exactly a week after Election Day. As California Sen. Kamala Harris, a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, put it to Barrett on Tuesday, “Republicans are scrambling to confirm this nominee as fast as possible because they need one more Trump judge on the bench before Nov.10th to win and strike down the entire Affordable Care Act. This is not hyperbole. This is not hypothetical. This is happening.” Said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), also on Tuesday: “We really believe the Supreme Court’s consideration of that case is going — could literally change America for millions of people.” To be sure, Republicans too were playing to their electorate during the questioning of Barrett, as they expounded on her conservative credentials on issues such as gun rights. Nonetheless, Democrats were uniformly disciplined in their assault on her potential vote in the ACA case. They chided both Barrett and the Republicans who are rushing her nomination to the floor literally days before a presidential election.
