Liberal group targets 2020 Democrats in Iowa over judicial nominees

A key liberal group opposed to President Trump’s judicial nominees is targeting Senate Democrats with presidential ambitions in Iowa, urging them not to support a year-end package of judicial nominees that Republicans hope to advance.

Demand Justice has taken out an ad in Thursday’s edition of The Des Moines Register urging eight senators with 2020 White House hopes to “protect ObamaCare” and make “no more deals with Trump judges.”

{mosads}The ad was placed before a Democratic aide announced Wednesday that Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) will not agree to a customary end-of-year package of judicial nominees, which the group called a “huge breakthrough.”

The ad prominently highlights Texas federal judge Reed O’Connor’s decision last week to strike down the Affordable Care Act, including protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The print ad also features portraits of Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

The ad says “any one of these Democrats could be a progressive hero by blocking the Senate from cutting any more deals on Trump’s judges.”

Thirty-one of Trump’s judicial nominees are currently pending on the Senate floor.

McConnell told reporters Tuesday that he was hoping to negotiate a deal.

“As is customary at the end of a session or before recess, the Democratic leader and I will be talking about nominations. We have a lot of them stacked up and we’ll be talking about putting trying to put together some kind of package on both executive branch nominations and judicial nominations,” McConnell told reporters.

Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, said Senate Democrats should not expedite the passage of any of Trump’s court picks in the wake of the Texas ruling against ObamaCare.

“Especially in light of the Texas judge’s ruling last week ruling ObamaCare unconstitutional, it would be insane to continue to give a free pass to lower-court judges that are ideologically extreme,” he said.

Fallon noted that O’Connor, the Texas judge, was a former President George W. Bush appointee.

“The average Trump judge is even more conservative than the judges that George W. Bush nominated,” he said. “The sort of politicize ruling that we saw last week is going to be more the norm with these Trump judges.”