Tues 9/29: Writing Judge Amy. (2 Actions)

Action #1: Write to Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

As far as we know, the fix is in already to immediately replace RBG with an extreme conservative, as the Senate is ruled by amoral invertebrates. Now there’s only one person, Judge Amy herself, who has the power to stop this circus.

Let’s write and ask her to do the right thing. Surely it wasn’t only our mothers who said “It never hurts to ask.” Crazy, but worth a try – even Darth Vader turned against his evil master. Postcard or letter, or try them both. Speak from the heart about values that are important to you. (tinyurl.com/Writing-Judge-Amy)
Address: Hon. Amy C. Barrett, Robert K. Rodibaugh United States Courthouse, 401 S. Michigan St., South Bend, IN 46601-230.

Action #2: Tell your legislators to ask the good questions.

If you have a Democratic senator, you know you don’t have to keep nagging them to vote against Amy. However, it’s important that good questions get asked. (These are liberally borrowed from a brilliant Facebook post on our site. Add any you think of.)

Minimal script for an email: (Send only to your own senators.)

Emoluments: “Judge Barrett, would you please explain the emoluments clause in the Constitution.”
- If a president were to refuse to divest himself of his properties and, in fact, continue to steer millions of dollars of tax payer money to his properties, would this violate the emoluments clause?
- Ask about specific examples, such as using the American ambassador to Britain to try to get the British Open golf tournament at a Trump property. (Find all examples...)
Hatch Act: “Judge Barrett, would you please explain the Hatch Act to the American people.”
- Did Kellyanne Conway violate the Hatch Act on these 60 occasions?
- Should she have been removed from office? Did her actions breed disrepect for the rule of law? (Find all examples, including use of White House during the GOP Convention.)
Division of Powers – Oversight: “Judge Barrett, would you please explain to the American people the duties of Congress, according to the Constitution, to oversee the executive branch.”
- When the Trump administration refuses time and again [list them] to respond to a subpoena from Congress, is this an obstruction of the constitutional duty of Congress for oversight?
- Is this an obstruction of justice?
Division of Powers – Power of the purse: “Judge Barrett, would you please explain to the American people the duties of Congress, according to the Constitution, to oversee the allocation of funding.”
- How would you catagorize the reallocation of military funding to a border wall, especially when he admitted that no emergency existed.
Impeachment: Read the transcript of Trump’s phone call. “Judge Barrett, would you describe this as a “perfect phone call”? Is there anything about this call that troubles you, as a judge, or as an American?”
- “What is the technical definition of collusion?” Then go through all of the contacts between the Trump administration and Russians during the election and get her opinion on whether these amount to collusion. Doesn’t matter how she answers. It gets Trump’s perfidy back in front of Americans right before the election.
Constitution: “The founders of our nation were intent on ensuring that foreign entities did not influence America’s democratic system. Judge Barrett, can you speak to the issue of foreign entanglement and the security threat of our president’s indebtedness?”

Contact
Senator Feinstein: email, DC (202) 224-3841, LA (310) 914-7300, SF (415) 393-0707, SD (619) 231-9712, Fresno (559) 485-7430
and Senator Harris: email,DC (202) 224-3553, LA (310) 231-4494, SAC (916) 448-2787, Fresno (559) 497-5109, SF (415) 981-9369, SD (619) 239-3884
Who is my representative/senator?: https://whoismyrepresentative.com

Deeper Dive in Trump’s judges:

More information on Amy Coney Barrett’s record. (Slate)

What Do We Really Know About Amy Coney Barrett?
What is her position on the Affordable Care Act?
The Top Contender for RBG’s Seat Has a Fundamentally Cruel Vision of the Law
Here’s the an outline and the Alliance for Justice report on her for the Supreme Court. As a Trump-appointed 7th Circuit judge, she voted:
- to allow a corporation to racially segregate its workplaces
- uphold denial of a visa to the wife of a US citizen, despite a strong dissent by a Reagan-appointed judge
- Along with fellow Trump Judges Brennan, Scudder, and St. Eve – cast deciding votes to rule that older workers cannot claim that an employer’s hiring practices have a discriminatory impact on them, despite federal law.

Here’s a brief list of the damage Trump’s crop of judges has already done. These examples are from pfaw.org. Read their full report here.

Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch was the deciding vote in more than a dozen decisions which, among other damage, upheld the Trump Muslim ban; approved Ohio’s purge of more than a million voters and reversed a decades-old precedent that protected workers’ rights.
Trump-appointed 5th Circuit Judge Don Willett cast the deciding vote to give Trump the power to fire the head of an independent housing finance agency set up by Congress
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch cast deciding votes that approved indefinite detention of some legal immigrants, put into place the Trump military transgender plan, and authorized the immediate execution of a prisoner before a lower court could even consider his religious discrimination claim.
All four Trump judges then on the 6^th Circuit – Judges Thapar, Bush, Larsen, and Nalbandian – voted to reverse a prior ruling and uphold Ohio’s law barring funding to Planned Parenthood for health care because it provides abortions with non-state funds.
The three Trump judges on the 11^th Circuit – Newsom, Branch, and Grant – joined an opinion by Newsom that made it much harder for victims of illegal job discrimination to prove their case and “drops an anvil on the employer’s side” of such cases
Trump 6^th Circuit judge Joan Larsen wrote a divided ruling that dismissed citizens’ group petitions to review air pollution permits without even reviewing the merits of their claims
Trump 5^th Circuit judges Willett, Ho, Engelhardt, and Oldham voted to allow a devastating Louisiana anti-choice law to take effect, a decision that was temporarily reversed by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote in which Gorsuch and Kavanaugh dissented.
Judge Neomi Rao is paying off her debt. In a dissent notable for its bizarre reasoning, she wrote a “get-out-of-jail” card to shield Trump from comgression oversight while ignoring Supreme Court precedent.
Trump 5^th Circuit judge James Ho, also knows how to get ahead, decided that rich people have a constitutional right to buy elections. He, like Judge Duncan below, decided to use his power to hurt a transgender woman.
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who worked with Beckett Fund, the same anti-LGBTQ hate group that Andrew Brasher coordinated cases with, refused to allow a transgender woman currently serving time in federal prison to change her name. To further her gratuitous public humiliation, he also refusing to use her preferred pronouns and calling her “gender-dysphoric.” “If a court orders one litigant referred to as ‘her’ (instead of ‘him’),” he writes, “then the court can hardly refuse when the next litigant moves to be referred to as ‘xemself’ (instead of ‘himself’).” (We “featured” him here.)