Understand the Power A Court Can Wield

Floor Speech

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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, tens of thousands of Arizona teachers took to the streets to demand that Governor Ducey and the Arizona State Legislature do right by Arizona students. It did so because Ducey and the State GOP have crippled the State's public education system.

Arizona spends the second lowest amount of money per student in the country, and Arizona's teachers are paid at the second lowest rate in the country. Students and teachers alike describe textbooks held together by tape, moldy ceilings leaking on students, and classes so overcrowded that kids have to sit on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, that is not what schools in the richest country in the world should look like. That is why Arizona's teachers championed the Invest in Ed proposition, to secure over $600 million in annual education funds for Arizona after Governor Ducey failed to provide the resources our students so desperately needed.

Over a quarter of a million Arizonans signed their names to get the Invest in Ed proposal on Arizona's ballot this fall. That is democracy in action. But last week, the Arizona State Supreme Court ordered the removal of the Invest in Ed proposition from State ballots based on a small technicality.

This appalling ruling is an insult to Arizona students, teachers, families, and to democracy. It is a blow to Arizona's education system and our economy. It is a naked power grab by the GOP that undermines our democracy by removing the right of voters to choose what is best for their kids and their communities.

Invest in Ed wasn't defeated because a majority of Arizonans votes against it. It wasn't defeated because it was opposed by an elected politician who can be removed from office in the next election. It was killed by Doug Ducey's supreme court, a court that Ducey and the Arizona Republicans packed with conservatives.

Governor Ducey fully understood the power a court can wield when he ran through his court-packing plan in 2016 to increase the size of the Arizona State Supreme Court. He knew the incredible power of a supreme court pick, even at the State level.

Mr. Speaker, we in Congress must not underestimate that power, especially now. Donald Trump has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill a seat in the U.S. Supreme Court, and here is what we know:

Judge Kavanaugh believes that a woman has no legal right to full autonomy over her own body;

Judge Kavanaugh believes that the agency created to protect consumers from fraud and predatory lending is unconstitutional;

Judge Kavanaugh believes that access to affordable healthcare should be determined by your age or your gender or your preexisting condition;

Judge Kavanaugh believes that the President should be above the law.

Here is what we don't know:

We don't know what is in the hundreds of thousands of pages of Kavanaugh's records that the Trump White House has refused to release, contrary to a century of Supreme Court precedent. That is unacceptable.

The Invest in Ed decision in Arizona is a blatant example of judicial power gone wrong, judicial power used to undermine democracy.

If confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh would join a panel of Justices with this very same power: the power to keep gutting the Voting Rights Act, the power to keep green-lighting partisan gerrymandering, the power to keep signing off on GOP efforts to purge the voter rolls.

We cannot allow this to happen. Doug Ducey's State supreme court set back democracy in Arizona. What Doug Ducey did to Arizona, Donald Trump will do to America with this Supreme Court. We cannot let that happen.

My colleagues in the Senate should reject Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. Our democracy depends on it.

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