Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV), vying against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto to replace retiring Sen. Harry Reid this fall, pretty much just stepped in it when answering a question about his anti-choice record, including his many votes to defund Planned Parenthood and his "pro-life" opposition to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion as a woman's right.
Heck said that he didn't want to "'second guess' a court decision made decades ago and didn't require any 'litmus test' issues for supporting a potential Supreme Court nominee." He continued.
"I'm not looking at specific issues," he said. "I'm looking at a Supreme Court justice and how they're going to conduct themselves on the bench, across a broad spectrum of things that may come before them, and look to somebody like Justice Scalia, who was more of a constructionist or original theorist in looking at the constitution."
Right. He has no litmus test, but his has to be another Scalia, who regularly argued that previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion were wrong. So his judicial hero had no problem second guessing previous decisions. That quote left a great big, Scalia-sized hole for Cortez Masto to leap into. She emails this statement in response:
Justice Antonin Scalia spent decades trying to restrict a woman’s right to privacy over her own body and believed marriage equality is a 'threat to democracy' and yet, Congressman Heck thinks the Supreme Court needs another extremely conservative Justice that will turn back decades of progress. Congressman Heck knows another Supreme Court Justice like Antonin Scalia will uphold the disastrous Citizens United decision that has allowed his friends in Washington to dump millions of dollars into Nevada to distract from Heck's record in Washington. Nevada women won't be fooled by Congressman Heck's ten votes to defund Planned Parenthood and his opposition to a woman's right to choose even when the health of the mother is at risk.
What Cortez Masto leaves out is that Heck has endorsed Donald Trump, and is absolutely fine with Trump picking the next Supreme Court justices. That's not good news for any American woman.
Can you pitch in with $3 to help Catherine Cortez Masto stand up for women?