Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took to Twitter on Monday to attack federal judge Amy Coney Barrett, a potential Trump pick for the Supreme Court. Barrett has ties to Tennessee. She was born in Louisiana, and lives in Indiana, but spent four college years in Tennessee, graduating from Rhodes College with a magna cum laude degree in English Literature, before going on to law school and a stellar legal career in practice, academia, and on the bench.
Perhaps more importantly, with Democrat Phil Bredesen being Chuck Schumer’s man in Tennessee, with close ties not only to the man but the big liberal donor money behind him, the length Schumer seems intent on going to attack a leading contender to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court should raise serious questions for Tennesseans as they contemplate where Bredesen’s loyalties will lie if he comes to represent Tennessee in the Senate next year.
Barrett attacked the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, which has helped millions of people secure health insurance coverage. https://t.co/JXJAbCmvN4
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 2, 2018
Schumer didn’t stop there.
Barrett also fought efforts to ensure that all women have access to contraceptives. https://t.co/voWM3KjeGr
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 2, 2018
There’s more on where the votes might come from to confirm Barrett to the high court here.
Sens. Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) are all from states that Trump won, and all are facing re-election this year. All three voted to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch last year. Barrett is also from Indiana, the home state of Donnelly — and of Vice President Mike Pence.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowsi (R-AK) are both considered moderate votes. Schumer may hope to sway Collins, because she has specifically declared she would not vote to confirm a justice that would overturn Roe v. Wade. But Schumer’s critics note that Barrett has never actually said that she would do so.
But, again, the key question for Tennesseans in this regard right now is what happens if any vote on a new Justice comes after the mid-terms. Can they trust Schumer’s hand-picked candidate Phil Bredesen to support a conservative like Amy Coney Barrett for the Court?
Schumer’s vicious and direct attacks on Barrett while having Phil Bredesen beholden to him for his fundraising network, would seem to suggest Bredesen can’t be counted on to deliver for President Trump, Tennessee, or conservatives should he win the battle to fill outgoing Senator Bob Corker’s seat in the Fall.
