Sen. Cory Booker Opposes Filling Supreme Court Vacancy Before Election
NPR
Sunday, September 20, 2020
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker about the Republican push to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the presidential election.
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NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker about the Republican push to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the presidential election.
Transcript
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
We're joined now by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be tasked with voting to confirm any nominee the president puts forward to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Good morning.
CORY BOOKER: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It is good to have you. Senator Chuck Schumer told his caucus yesterday that nothing is off the table if the Republicans fill Justice Ginsburg's seat before the election. What does that mean?
BOOKER: Well, let's be focused on what we have. I know there's a lot of folks who want to look down the line. But there are, perhaps, some of the most defining moments in my lifetime in the next 45 days. The first is, will Republicans, who said just four years ago that this is a decision that should not be made during an election year - they said that 269 days before election. We're 45 days before Election Day, and the voting has already started. The question right now is, will those Republican senators honor their word and not cooperate with this push to get something to the floor and voted - someone to the floor and voted on?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, I think...
BOOKER: And then the second question is the elections themselves. These are the most important elections. Nothing is possible - these hypotheticals are not possible unless we win back the United States Senate.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sure. But Senator, clearly, at this point, the majority of Republicans have said that they will back the president on this. So I am curious what the Democrats are going to do? Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler says, if Democrats win the Senate, they should expand the Supreme Court. Do you agree that should happen?
BOOKER: Again, I fully believe that hypothetical elections have consequences. We're seeing that right now. And as opposed to jumping over a very difficult...
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But where do you stand on that?
BOOKER: I stand on focusing on making sure that Mitch McConnell is not running the Senate. We've seen his willingness to break Senate norms to do raw, naked power grabs. And we have to make sure the Democrats are in control of the Senate in the next election and the presidency.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sure. But if you offer that to Democrats and you say, we need to take back the Senate, what will you do in order to ensure that this doesn't happen again?
BOOKER: I think that's a great question.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's a fair question.
BOOKER: I think that's great question. That gets us back to focusing on the now. If Democrats are in control of the Senate and Joe Biden is in the White House, number one, we'll deal with this coronavirus as it should be dealt with.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: No. Will you expand the Supreme Court? - was my question to do with this particular issue.
BOOKER: And, again, that is hypotheticals that I can't answer right now. What I want to focus on, in my opinion, is the urgency of this election and the issues that are at hand. We know health care is on the ballot because the Supreme Court, as we are seeing right now, is going to decide people with preexisting conditions or not. We know that the Senate confirms justices. And Mitch Mitchell has bene confirming justices that don't even believe that Brown v. Board of Education is settled law.
All of these things we're discussing right now would not be possible if the Republicans hadn't won the Senate. And so the most important thing we can focus on right now so that we have many options is winning back the Senate and the White House to stop this erosion of basic rights in our country that were fought and sacrificed for generations past.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator...
BOOKER: Women's rights, LGBTQ rights and more.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sure. Senator Booker, let me see if I can get you to answer this. The president has said he will appoint a woman. Our reporting suggests a few names are at the top, including Amy Coney Barrett. Some of your colleagues have expressed reservations about her. I'm curious about your thoughts on her, in particular, any of the other names floated like Barbara Lagoa. Will you consider anyone nominated?
BOOKER: Well, again, I fall into the camp of believing that we should not be moving to this nomination based upon the words of Mitch McConnell and numbers of my colleagues. Voting has started in a number of states. And I really do believe that we should be not considering any nominations. So the individual themselves is not what's important to me. The principle established by the words of Mitch McConnell and other senators is what we should be honoring and to not do so, as they're plainly breaking their word. And my hope, as we saw with the last time they were doing things that had consequences for people's health care, is that a number of senators broke with the Republican Party and made sure we did not lose the Affordable Care Act.
Well, that issue and many others are at stake right now. And I'm hoping that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will realize that and wait until after the inauguration before we begin to consider a nominee from a president.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thank you very much.
BOOKER: Thank you very much.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we should say NPR also reached out to Republicans on the committee for our show, and they declined to be interviewed. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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