10.25.20

Cantwell Excoriates Rush to Confirm Supreme Court Nominee Who Threatens Women’s Health; Calls for Action on COVID-19 Relief for Struggling Businesses, Millions of Americans

Cantwell: We should have helped our economy deal with COVID-19, but “true to form to the other side of the aisle, it's way more important to go after a woman's right to choose”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Senate Republicans continue their rush to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) excoriated the non-stop efforts to overturn protections for reproductive rights and health care in the midst of a global pandemic in a speech on the Senate floor this evening.

“The truth of the matter is the majority of Americans support a woman's right to choose. The majority of states support a woman's right to choose in what their public believes,” Cantwell said. “It is a minority, and a minority on this floor, who does not support that and would love to have a judicial process that shortcuts active debate about the issues of what are in the mainstream views of Americans.” 

“The main point is, the other side of the aisle wants to nominate people who are out of the mainstream view of America,” Cantwell continued.

In her remarks, Cantwell also highlighted the millions of American businesses and workers struggling from the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and demanded the Senate get them much-needed support: 

“To add insult to injury to this whole process is the fact that we’re not really doing our day job. We’re not dealing with this economic crisis that’s facing America,” Cantwell said. 

“We know that one in five small businesses could be closed by 2021, a devastating impact to our economy… And so we should have sat down and fixed this. We should have sat down and made sure that we were fixing what needed to be fixed to help our economy in the midst of a COVID pandemic. But no, true to form to the other side of the aisle, it's way more important to go after a woman's right to choose. That's way more important than these economic issues.”

TV-quality video of Senator Cantwell’s floor remarks is available HERE, YouTube video is HERE, and audio is HERE. 

A full transcript is of Senator Cantwell’s remarks is available HERE.

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