There are several issues I care about more than just about anything else. The environment. Voting rights. Women’s rights. On these three issues I am not sure Trump could have picked a worse person than Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Lets me explain why those issues are so important for me in reverse order.
Women Rights
My family eight years ago had the first women born into my side of the family in more than 100 years. The women we marry seem to be very good at giving birth to boys. I am sure this would be really cool in a Games of Thrones type thing where they need a future king.
I always felt it was kind of depressing.
But the upside is the men in my family always marry strong women.
Heck at my mom’s funeral, years ago, a person I’d never met asked about my mother’s first husband. I knew nothing of this. I asked my father WTF dude, how do I not know this. I was told her first husband beat and raped her. She was lucky enough to get away.
My father fell in love with her, well had kind of always been in love with her. Didn’t view her as “damaged” goods or that she had already been married (this is the mid-60s I might add). Dad said he figured I knew this, because she wasn’t allowed to wear white at her wedding, and I had the pics. Didn’t I connect the dots? I was like, nope, not really.
They have been married for 51 years.
Would also find his parents didn’t feel this way, which explained a lot. Why they were always so mean to her. Openly mean, didn’t even try to hide it. She was in fact “damaged” goods in their eyes. Wasn’t good enough for their son. But my mother never once lost her temper with them. Never said a bad thing about them to me.
Why I was also able to connect the dots more clearly why she always gave clothes, kitchen items, her time and money to women crisis centers. It wasn’t that she just cared, but because she was a victim!
This is why women not getting equal pay for equal work (my mother worked to put my father through grad school). The high rate of rape in generally and on college campus specifically. Ladies in relationships where they are beat and far to often killed. Coupled with the fact so many men want to get all up in their reproductive rights piss me off so much. My mother is a better human than I am, she shouldn’t have to deal with all this bullshit.
I just can’t wrap my mind around this all and why in 2017 we’re even having these conversations.
I am the far left hippy liberal in my family. Everybody else not so much. But on women’s issues they are right with me. Heck, I have this amazing relationship with Katie, that one little lady finally born into my side of the family.
Her mother Sara, the most non-liberal of us all, once said to me if Katie ever comes to you and needs advice about say sex, or something she might not feel comfortable asking us, I should give her the advice I think correct. If that includes me taking her to a Planned Parenthood, then I have her 110% permission.
I will just end with this. If I got somebody pregnant and she said she wanted an abortion I would beg her not to do it. I think there is little chance this will happen, because my mother taught at a young age using protection when I have sex is a sign I respect her. But I would also say the decision is solely hers and I will stand by her and do anything I can do to help.
Clearly Neil Gorsuch would be flat out terrible on these issues!
Voting Rights
My mother runs elections in her district. She calls me before any election in Illinois to remind me to vote (not that she needs to). Then she calls me the night of almost in tears that so few people voted.
When I see the pics posted here on election days of lines around the block. Horror stories of how hard it will is to vote I am thankful. Here in rural, Southern Illlinois we have voting down to a science.
I like to joke I can vote faster than I can order a Big Mac. There is no excuse not to vote. But so many people don’t.
IMHO you don’t need to be a liberal to see that many Republicans want to make it as hard as possible for those that don’t vote for them, well to vote. My mother at first didn't see the problem behind having an ID to vote (we don't require anything like that here I should note).
I had to explain that in certain communities, and sent her a couple stats, that many don't have IDs. Said that is foreign to you and me. But I am upper middle class. You have more money than you can spend in a lifetime. Not everybody is like us and the use of empathy here might be important. If you want more people to vote this is a terrible, terrible idea and one every American should be against
Neil Gorsuch IMHO will never see a law restricting voting that he doesn’t like.
The Environment
When I lived in DC my best friend worked for the EPA. Enforcement lawyer. He used to take me to EPA parties. Yes, there are EPA parties. People would introduce themselves by saying the Divisions they worked in, like “Ground Water.”
My friend worked 12 years to get one little thing put in place. 12 years. You see the sewer system in DC is so old that when it rains a lot, raw sewage backs up into the Potamic River, including around all the Monuments on the Mall.
The EPA just wanted signs put up to note not to swim or fish after heavy rains.
It takes a shitload of time and effort to get environmental regs in place. Did I mention 12 years in the little example I used. Judge Gorsuch with his vote can get rid of them in seconds.
Do I wish we had many more laws in place? You bet. But honestly, we’ve made a lot of progress. People younger than me might not recall that major rivers in the US used to catch on fire. Smog. Acid rain, yes it rained acid here in my lifetime. Now it doesn’t.
I fear of all things Gorsuch will be the worse here.
Conclusion
I fear how Gorsuch will decide cases. But there is something else I fear almost as much. Reading wonky blogs about the Supreme Court it is clear Scalia was well liked with those he worked with. He was also maybe the sharpest legal mind on the court and at times he swayed the votes of others.
Say what you will about Gorsuch, but he has to be the smartest person in the room almost all the time. The cases he decided as a Federal judge were ironclad. Opinions written in a manner they could not be overturned. I really don't want somebody on the court like this for the next 30+ years.
We got to filibuster this guy, now and for four years if required. We have to pull out every parliamentary procedure we can find. We can’t allow him on the court.
There is this fear I have. One I’ve heard many people here voice in many different ways.
It is when Katie is an adult. Maybe we never addressed climate change, or where we tried they were rolled back, and things are getting worse. Planned Parenthood is just a memory, no longer around. Large parts of our population can’t easily vote, so they have stopped even trying.
And Katie will ask me, “Tommy what did you do to stop all this?” I have to have a good response. I do think phone calls and emails to my elected officials matter. And I bet they are sick of hearing from me :).