Democrats Raise First Amendment Concerns As Gorsuch Confirmation Looms

Sen Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) took the floor of the Senate to call for a filibuster and voice concerns over how Judge Neil Gorsuch might handle First Amendment cases in light of President Trump’s calls to “open up” libel laws.

“Voting rights, workers’ rights, reproductive rights, even our First Amendment speech rights, which President Trump has threatened by saying he wants to ‘open up libel laws against the press’–if any of these cases make it to the Supreme Court, they will all be decided in part by the next Supreme Court justice,” Sen Gillibrand said. She added that the judge’s record “does not give me confidence that he will be a justice whose rulings would bolster those individual rights.”