DENVER – Just minutes after President Donald Trump made it official Saturday and nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Colorado political leaders from both sides of the aisle made their opinions known.
Democrats and Republicans had plenty to say, and all of them that released statements appeared to toe their respective party line.
Republicans said they look forward to moving ahead with confirmation hearings.
Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner tweeted: “In the days and weeks ahead, I look forward to meeting with Judge Amy Coney Barrett and thoroughly examining her judicial record as I fulfill my constitutional duty of advice and consent.”
In a second tweet, Gardner wrote: “The American people elected a President and Senate majority who committed to nominating and confirming judges who follow the Constitution, uphold the law, and refuse to legislate from the bench.”
The Colorado Democratic Party slammed Gardner for “flip flopping on his own 2016 commitment.”
“Senator Cory Gardner cowardly caved to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and gave his party bosses the greenlight to rush a Supreme Court justice through that could overturn the Affordable Care Act — gutting protections for people with pre-existing conditions — and put Roe v. Wade on the chopping block. Plain and simple, Senator Gardner sold Coloradans out,” Colorado Democratic Party chair Morgan Carroll said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., echoed some of the same fears expressed in Carroll’s statement.
“Just because Judge Barrett is a woman doesn’t mean she’s a champion of women’s rights. In fact, Judge Barrett has a long history of opposing women’s constitutional right to reproductive care and to control what happens to their own body,” DeGette said in part in a statement.
Barrett, a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a devout Roman Catholic, has been hailed by religious conservatives and others on the right as an ideological heir to conservative icon Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice for whom she clerked. But liberals say her legal views are too heavily influenced by her religious beliefs and fear her ascent to the nation’s highest court could lead to a scaling back of hard-fought abortion rights.
