Progressive group joins Oregon Sen Jeff Merkley in call for Democrats to filibuster Neil Gorsuch
President Trump announced his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday night, Colorado Judge Neil Gorsuch. Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) quickly denounced the pick and supported Sen. Jeff Merkley’s call for Democrats to filibuster.
“There is zero appetite among the public for weakness from Democratic politicians. Especially after Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat, every Senate Democrat should join Sen. Jeff Merkley’s filibuster of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Gorsuch. That’s the kind of backbone the public needs to see right now.” — Stephanie Taylor, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Neil Gorsuch
Taylor uses to term “stole” referring to the GOP stall after the death of Justice Scalia during the campaign process. Expect this tone and language to be part of the PCCC TV campaign in key vote states as PCCC is one of the first groups to start running TV ads on Trump’s cabinet.
“This is a stolen seat. This is the first time a Senate majority has stolen a seat. We will use every lever in our power to stop this,” Merkley said yesterday.
The PCCC targeted Steve Mnuchin with a six-figure buy, which was just expanded Tuesday, airing in Washington D.C., Nevada (Sen. Dean Heller), Arizona (Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain), Florida (Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio), Iowa (Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst), Missouri (Sen. Claire McCaskill), Colorado (Sen. Michael Bennett), Virginia (Sen. Mark Warner), and Delaware (Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons).
Some odd names to be pointed out. Republicans Flake, McCain and Rubio have been opponents of the President on foreign policy and immigration at times, but to think that they were flip a vote against Gorsuch seems out of bounds. Flake will be challenged in 2018, so don’t expect to see might him go against the masses to fuel internal GOP opposition.
Nelson may be under the microscope here as Florida went for Trump in November and Nelson faces re-election in 2018 with the President calling for the current governor, Rick Scott, to run against Nelson. Another Democrat to watch is McCaskill, who is notably a strong liberal for the Democrats, but also faces re-election pressure as Missouri went “hard” for Trump (he won 56-38% over Clinton).
Adam Green, co-founder of PCCC, send a loud and vocal message to supporters after the Gorsuch nomination: WE. WILL. FIGHT.
“We will march. We will protest. We will launch events. We will run TV ads. We will elevate the stories of Gorsuch’s victims. And we will insist that Democrats in Congress fight with backbone,” was the messsage in a call for small and large donations.
