Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware was on CNN Sunday with Jake Tapper and his State of the Union show. Sen. Coons is facing a QAnon conspiracy theorist challenger to his Senate seat in a couple of weeks, by the name of Lauren Witzke. That’s what the Republican Party electorate seems to respond to: conspiracy theories so vague and so easy to poke holes in that it makes the most outrageous 9/11 conspiracy theorist look painfully banal by comparison.
During the interview Tapper asked Sen. Coons, who has many of the same moderate leanings as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, whether or not “packing the court” was on the table. This is an interesting person to ask this question to because if Biden and Harris were to win, and if the Senate were to swing blue this November, the question about what can be done to balance our courts, after about 5 years of Republican fascistic maneuvering is definitely on the table; and Sen. Chris Coons is one of a few senators that lean much further right than many Democrats would like.* Sen. Coons’ answers here were worth a listen.
The first question Tapper asked Coons was whether he would vote to “expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court,” to which Coons said he was in line with Joe Biden’s position that this nomination process was bad all across teh board, and that Amy Coney Barrett was unqualified “because of her extreme judicial philosophy.” He made sure to specify that this move on the part of Republicans was an attempt to destroy millions of Americans healthcare coverage in the middle of a pandemic. He finished by saying he was ready along with the Democratic Party to help re-balance the “federal judiciary” however that may look over the next few weeks. Jake Tapper then asked what passes for a gotcha question against Democratic officials these days in traditional media minds, asking “So you are open to expanding the court?”
“Yes.”
That’s big. When traditionalist Democrats like Coons are open to expanding the court, and publicly saying as much just weeks before election, that means the political will is clearly there to make that happen. It also means that Sen. Coons’ internal polling is showing that the will of the people is there as well.
*We haven’t forgotten you Sen. Joe Mancin.
from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/3lY2HQV
No comments:
Post a Comment