Washington, D.C.—In response to Donald Trump’s announcement that he would renominate dozens of judicial nominees sent back to the White House by the Senate last year, People For the American Way Executive Vice President Marge Baker issued the following statement:

“Donald Trump has spent the last two years nominating some of the most extreme, unqualified judicial nominees in recent memory. At the end of last year, in the face of strong opposition by Democrats, the Senate sent back dozens of those nominees to the White House. The intervening weeks haven’t made those nominees any better. The list includes nominees like Chad Readler, who signed onto a brief attempting to strip millions of Americans of the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting conditions—a brief so extreme that three other Department of Justice officials resigned rather than put their name to it. It includes nominees like Eric Murphy, who fought to make it easier to strip voters, especially African American voters, of their right to cast a ballot. It includes Wendy Vitter, who pushed dishonest junk science to scare women about abortion, and Neomi Rao, who cast rape as ‘a choice’ made by women who drink too much.

“These nominees are blatantly unqualified for lifetime seats on the federal bench. The fact that Republicans have fallen in lockstep behind so many unfit judicial nominations is an appalling testament to their willingness to put partisanship over principle and the wellbeing of their constituents. Democrats need to stand up against this kind of extremism with everything they’ve got and make clear that they won’t be a party to Trump’s effort to pack the courts with extreme, unqualified nominees.”

People For the American Way is a progressive advocacy organization founded to fight right-wing extremism and defend constitutional values including free expression, religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and the right to meaningfully participate in our democracy.

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