Senate Democrats boycotted Thursday morning's Judiciary Committee vote on Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination, but chairman Lindsey Graham plowed ahead anyway, putting a point on what a total sham the whole process has been. The Committee's rules expressly state that there have to be at least nine members, "including at least two Members of the minority," to "constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business." Further, "No bill, matter, or nomination shall be ordered reported from the Committee, however, unless a majority of the Committee is actually present at the time such action is taken and a majority of those present support the action taken."
Rules are for everyone else, however, so the Committee moved ahead with all 12 Republicans passing her nomination. "Judge Barrett deserves a vote and she will receive a vote," Graham said Wednesday, adding, "As to my Democratic colleagues' refusal to attend the markup, that is a choice they are making. I believe it does a disservice to Judge Barrett who deserves a vote, up or down." Because she is a Republican and a whack job. Merrick Garland, of course, did not deserve a vote, up or down, because he was nominated by a Democratic president who won both the popular and Electoral College vote, twice. But Democrats not being there for the hearing was "surreal," Sen. John Cornyn said, calling their choice to have pictures of people whose lives would be endangered by the loss of the Affordable Care Act mere theater.
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"Democrats are boycotting the illegitimate markup of Judge Barrett’s nomination in Judiciary," Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted. "We are not going to have business as usual while the Republicans try to use an illegitimate process to jam through a nominee to rip away health care from millions." That's awful, but everything else about this nominee is pretty much worse. For instance, she refused to answer Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's written questions about abortion, including whether states should execute women for obtaining an illegal abortion. She said she could not express an opinion on whether states should kill women for getting abortions. Which pretty much tells you where her head is at.
She refused to answer most of the follow up questions from Democrats. On voting rights, on health care, on abortion rights, on unfettered executive power claims by Trump, she answered with some variation of the theme: "As a sitting judge and as a judicial nominee, it would not be appropriate for me to offer an opinion on abstract legal issues or hypotheticals."
As if there was anything she could say in answer to their questions that would keep Republicans from putting her on the court. They're going to have the cloture vote for her on Sunday—Sunday—and this extremely devout Catholic who refused to say it's bad to rip children from their families and put them in cages and who apparently has no opinion on the death penalty has no objection to the Senate working on the Sabbath for her advancement.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said that they oppose having this vote before the election. We'll see if they'll stick with that "principled" stand. On Sunday.