We gather today at a solemn moment for our nation.
For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court is taking away fundamental freedoms and rights from Americans.
We need to stand up not just against the decision overturning Roe, but against this Court itself.
This particular Supreme Court has a crisis of legitimacy.
Think of how we got here. The Republicans refused to confirm Merrick Garland many months before an election. Then, they rammed Justice Barrett through within days of an election. No to Garland, yes to Barrett.
They did not even attempt to hide their hypocrisy.
This is a Court that is no longer appealing to reason but engaged in the brute exercise of power.
It is a court so isolated that it has lost all sense of reality about public opinion and how Americans live. Far from serving as a check on majoritarian rule, six of the Court’s Justices are serving to entrench a right wing ideology.
It is a court marred, in the words of Justice Sotomayer, by “the stench of politics.”
Democrats, can we make a pledge tonight? Let’s stop pretending that this Court is some hallowed institution engaged in public spirited deliberation. It is not. The long black robes can no longer consecrate petty partisan and ideological motives.
How can you decide that states do not have the power to keep us safe from guns, but the next day somehow states do have the right to take freedom away from women?
For women in about half of the states of this nation, pregnancy is now mandatory. If you are pregnant and attempt to do anything about it, you will engage in criminal activity.
And this decision is just the first step in the Republican assault on freedom.
The freedom to plan a family and use birth control.
The freedom to marry the person that you love no matter their gender.
So I’ve got a message for the partisan justices who think they have won the battle on abortion rights.
We have just begun to fight.
Six unelected extremists do not have the final word on interpreting the Constitution.
From the time of Lincoln, mobilized Americans have stood up to the Court when it has been anti-egalitarian and anti democratic, and we have won.
This Alito Court, too, will live in infamy.
The American people get to decide what the Constitution means. In a democracy, We the People get to decide what are fundamental rights and freedoms.
Today, I want to outline a vision for reform of the Supreme Court that our party should get behind. All options should be on the table. People don’t want us to just shout, they want us to offer solutions.
We need term limits for these justices. No Justice should serve more than 18 years which means the time for many of the current Justices would be up. Each President should get 2 appointments in their four years. This would de-politicize the Court and reinstitute fair rules to American politics that both sides live by.
I introduced a term limits bill over a year ago with Representative Joe Kennedy.
The presidents own commission on court reform recommended it.
It’s time for President Biden and our party’s leadership to endorse it.
It is time for us to vote on it and pass it.
We also need hearings for the justices who lied in their confirmation.
The campaigns two of the Republican Justices launched to get their jobs were more dishonest than the campaigns many of my colleagues waged to get to Congress. And that’s saying something.
We need to pass and enforce a judicial code of ethics. Those justices who participated or had family participate in efforts to overturn President Biden’s election should be barred from sitting on any case involving future federal elections. That’s just common sense.
Finally, we need to end the filibuster so that the Congress can stand up to this counter-majoritarian Court. Here is my question: How long can American democracy withstand the stress of both the Court and the Senate blatantly disregarding the popular will? How long will people quietly take this abuse?
We must vote to abolish the filibuster and codify Roe this month. That is what grassroots Democrats across Nevada and our nation expect. They are demanding action from their elected representatives.
