Progressives Demand Outside Supreme Court: 'No Confirmation Before Inauguration'

Progressive groups rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Sunday to demand President Donald Trump's new nominee for the top court, Amy Coney Barrett, face no confirmation hearing until after Election Day.

The action--organized by groups including Demand Justice, Planned Parenthood Action, Sunrise Movement, and March for Our Lives--follows warnings that Trump's proposed replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is "a far-right ideologue" who would dismantle Obamacare and roll back key rights and whose confirmation timeline reveals a power-grab by Republicans. The president formally announced 48-year-old Barrett, his third Supreme Court nominee, for the lifetime appointment on Saturday.

"Where have they been on Covid relief, justice for Breonna Taylor, reproductive rights, gun violence prevention, and climate?" organizers wrote of senators in their event description.

"The people demand that OUR NEEDS ARE MET before the Senate entertains the idea of confirming a new justice days before the most important presidential election of our lifetime," they continued.

Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director at CPD Action, another group behind the Sunday rally, says that too much is on the line to let Republicans' plan to give the top court a 6-3 conservative majority go unchallenged.

"The Supreme Court makes rulings that shape all of our lives--everything from healthcare to transgender rights to climate change is affected by the decisions made in this position. It is unacceptable and unjust to try to rush through a nomination less than 40 days from the election," Archila said in a statement Sunday.

"Our future is at stake," she continued. "We must fight for it by doing everything in our power to delay the nomination."

Indivisible has provided a tool kit to take on the task.

"From reproductive rights to access to healthcare and more, it's clear that Barrett would rubber stamp Trump's agenda for decades to come if confirmed," the group warns. "Even more urgently, if the 2020 presidential election results are challenged in court, she could hand the White House to Trump."

In lgiht of those threats, Indivisible lays out a three-part plan of attack:

1. First, take a look at our strategy on how to #SaveSCOTUS.
2. Next, register an event at your senators' in-district offices during our week of action.
3. Then, from now until the confirmation, flood your senators' offices with phone calls.

The Save SCOTUS resource page urges people to call their senators to demand they refuse to consider any possible Supreme Court justice until after Election Day and to amplify that pressure on lawmakers using social media platforms.

"Call, tweet, and email your senators--and then start phonebanking, writing letters, or plan a local event to take the Senate this November," says the group. "We owe Justice Ginsburg nothing less."

Several Democratic senators have already indicated their refusal to take part in considering Barrett.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), for one, said in a Saturday statement, "I refuse to treat this process as legitimate and will not meet with Judge Barrett."

"In the middle of a global pandemic that has claimed more than two hundred thousand American lives," said Blumenthal, "rushing confirmation of an extreme jurist who will decimate healthcare is unconscionable."