“The president’s nomination of DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh will threaten women’s reproductive rights generally and Roe v Wade in particular. When a minor immigrant in detention sought to exercise her right to obtain a legal abortion, Kavanaugh tried to block her access to abortion care, claiming that the court was creating ‘a new right’ for immigrants in custody ‘to obtain immediate abortion on demand.’

“Kavanaugh also dissented from rulings upholding the Affordable Care Act and claims that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional. He routinely decides for the powerful against the powerless when safety, equality, consumer rights, the environment and workers protections are at stake. Although Kavanaugh worked on the impeachment of President Clinton, he now maintains that ‘criminal investigations and prosecutions of the president’ should be deferred while a president is in office.

“The selection of a nominee for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court is not a matter to be taken lightly. We have been studying the list the president has used for many months. His process has been, quite clearly, to outsource the vetting of nominees to the ultra-conservative Federalist Society (a group of right wing lawyers bent on influencing the selection process) and the Heritage Foundation, another far right group promoting a rightwing policy agenda. The two groups together are the source of all of the names the president considered.

“The refusal of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even to grant a hearing to Merrick Garland, President Obama’s 2017 nominee has resulted in a sort of judicial coup, in which all three branches of government are now under the sway of an agenda designed to thwart every stab at progress for equal rights, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, health care, and voting rights, as well as to cede power to the president regarding any issue with the most tangential relationship to national security.

“NCJW will take the long view and continue its work defending equity and justice for all Americans. For now, the Senate must do its job and reject Brett Kavanaugh on behalf of the American people. We deserve fair and honest judges in a fair and honest system, not one that has been clouded by the will of a small, regressive minority.”