Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in opposition to the nomination of Kyle Duncan for the U.S. Circuit Court for the Fifth Circuit.

I find his nomination troubling, but I find many of President Trump's nominees for judges troubling because they want to restrict established rights or roll back privacy issues, whether it is Roe v. Wade or LGBT rights.

In many cases, Mr. Duncan has tried to take away these very important reproductive rights for women. From 2012 to 2014, he was the lead counsel on the Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius Supreme Court case. That flawed decision allows closely held corporations to deny FDA-approved contraceptive coverage to women employees if the company owners object to the contraception based on religious beliefs.

More than half of the working-age women in Washington State get their healthcare coverage through their employer. They pay for their coverage through hard-earned wages and compensation. Their employer should not be able to just cherry-pick what benefits they get because the owners have a self-professed religious objection.

Mr. Duncan also tried to go after State laws protecting birth control access. Thanks in part to Washington State pharmacist Jennifer Erickson, Washington State has a law on the books requiring all pharmacies to stock and deliver all lawfully prescribed drugs, including contraception, but Mr. Duncan worked to take that hard-fought access away.

In 2016, he filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a challenge to the Washington State pharmacy law in order to strike it down.

He also worked to deny access to constitutional rights to terminate pregnancies. In the Whole Women's Health case, Mr. Duncan filed a brief defending an unconstitutional Texas law that restricted access to safe and legal abortions at qualified health providers.

Ultimately, in the Whole Women's Health case, the Supreme Court rightly struck down this very deceptive Texas law, finding it had nothing to do with medical necessity and placed an undue burden on women.

In the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, Mr. Duncan authored an amicus brief which argued against same-sex marriage, and he has represented North Carolina in their defense of the ``bathroom bill,'' which discriminated against transgender individuals. We need to expand the rights of the LGBT community, not nominate a judge who believes we should roll back these laws that are so important to the individuals in my State.

Mr. Duncan also defended North Carolina's restrictive voting laws which limited early voting, prevented same-day registration, and placed limitations on where people could vote. The appeals court found that these restrictions violated the Voting Rights Act because they were disproportionately affecting African Americans. We do not need to see a judge on our bench who is trying to limit people's participation in our democracy as we are trying to protect their access to voting.

It is no secret the Trump administration has been chipping away at women's healthcare and constitutional rights by using every tool at their disposal. I am especially troubled that the President is intent on nominating judges, such as this one, who do not respect the settled law of Roe v. Wade.

The administration is making every attempt to roll back these important privacy laws. Kyle Duncan, the nominee we are considering, has spent decades doing the same. That is the reason I oppose his confirmation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I hope they will follow in making sure we protect these important rights.

Thank you.

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