Amy Klobuchar: ‘In the Name of RBG,’ Do Not Confirm Amy Coney Barrett

Democratic Minnesota Senator and former 2020 presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar delivered a blistering opening statement during Day 1 of the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett on Monday.

Klobuchar went after President Donald Trump for his decision to rush Barrett’s confirmation through while voting is already underway in 40 states, as well as his reported comments on veterans and refusal to say whether he will commit to a peaceful transition of power, should he lose the November 3 election.

She also said that Coney Barrett’s confirmation would mark a step “backward” from trailblazing late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s Supreme Court accomplishments, rulings and dissents.

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Klobuchar Said Voters Know ‘Just What Trump & Republicans Are Up To’ & That ‘In the Name of RBG,’ Coney Barrett Should Not Be Confirmed

Klobuchar delivered one of the most passionate Democratic opening statements during the hearing, attacking Trump as a “president who doesn’t believe the truth matters” and hammering the fact that Supreme Court decisions have real-world consequences for Americans, particularly when they involve health care.

“This is a rush to put in a justice, one whose views are known and that will have a profound impact on your life,” Klobuchar said. “These policies that the court decides, they matter.”

She also invoked Ginsburg, insisting that a Barrett confirmation would set the country back and undo many of Ginsburg’s most consequential rulings for women and minorities:

This judgeship was held by an icon, who voted to protect your health care, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was a woman who never took no for an answer. When they told her a girl shouldn’t go to law school, she graduated first in her class. When they said a man should argue landmark equal protection cases because maybe they would have a better chance of winning, she did it herself, and she won. She never gave up. She had her own hashtag, well into her 80s: ‘the notorious RBG.’ And her last, fervent wish was that a new president, the winner of this election, would pick her replacement.

When you look at her opinions, you realize she wasn’t just writing for today. She was writing for tomorrow. To the women of America, we have come so far, and in the name of RBG, we should not go backward. As the Rabbi said at Justice Ginsburg’s memorial, her dissents, her strong words when she disagreed with the Republican justices, were never cries of defeat — they were blueprints for the future.

Klobuchar also said that the confirmation hearing was a “sham” that showed “real messed-up priorities from the president and Republican party.”

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