House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that a vote for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, is a vote to “destroy Roe v. Wade.” Pelosi added that a Democratic congress “can stop much of the Supreme Court’s awful assaults,” citing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed in 2009 by then-President Obama.
“A vote for Judge Kavanaugh is a vote to destroy Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said during a press conference with abortion groups and the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus. “It’s a vote to roll back a generation of progress for women and their families. But we don’t agonize, we organize because we know that a Democratic Congress can stop much of the Supreme Court’s awful assaults.”
Pelosi cited the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which directly addressed the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. regarding when the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins.
“Congress has a role to mitigate for damage caused by the court and we have to assert that right,” she emphasized.
During the event, Pelosi did not specifically call for every Supreme Court nominee to express support for Roe v. Wade as many abortion groups and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have done. Instead, she claimed that Kavanaugh did not respect precedent.
“We have to work to say that we shouldn’t be appointing someone to the court that does not support stare decisis – previous decisions of the court,” she said.
While declining to give his personal views on the matter, Kavanaugh has already said, when he was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in 2006, that he would “follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully. That would be binding precedent of the court. It has been decided by the Supreme Court."
Pelosi also baselessly argued that Kavanaugh’s nomination posed a risk to “everything” including the landmark civil rights decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools.
“Because of some of the comments that Justice Kavanaugh has made, and others, it is important to note that everything is at risk,” she claimed, “Roe v. Wade, a woman’s right to choose, Brown v. Board of Education, civil rights, environmental issues, gun safety the list goes on and on.”
Pelosi concluded with the claim, challenged by a Washington Post fact check, that Kavanaugh said a sitting president is “above the law” and cannot be indicted.