GOP Senators Chastise Conservative Justices in the Wake of Leak

by Sebastian Hughes

Two moderate Republican senators criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that if the draft opinion was accurate, “it rocks my confidence in the court right now,” Politico’s Burgess Everett reported. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the accuracy of the leak in a statement Tuesday.

“If the decision is going the way that the draft that has been revealed is actually the case, it was not the direction that I believed that the court would take based on statements have been made about Roe being settled and being precedent,” Murkowski said, The New York Times’ Emily Cochrane reported.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that, should the draft become the final decision, it would be “completely inconsistent” with what Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh told her before their confirmations.

“Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case,” she said. The draft opinion was circulated in February, Politico reported.

Both Republicans previously claimed the Trump-appointed justices they voted to confirm would not overturn the 1973 ruling by the Court and issued statements on Tuesday chastising the leaked draft opinion.

Before voting to confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Collins said neither would get rid of Roe. She told CNN Gorsuch understood the importance of “precedent,” and said Kavanaugh believed the ruling to be “settled law,” The Washington Post reported.

Murkowski claimed Justice Amy Coney Barrett would not overturn Roe before she voted to confirm the Trump appointee, The Hill reported.

“I don’t see her overturning the decision in Roe v. Wade, based on — based on the weighting of the reliance factors,” she said at the time. “I believe, that given how she outlined, not only to me but how she spoke to the issue of reliance when she was before the committee, I believe that she will look at that and weight that in any matters, in any cases that come before her that take up Roe v. Wade.”

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Sebastian Hughes is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Lisa Murkowski” by United States Senate Photo Office. Photo “Susan Collins” by U.S. Congress. Background Photo “U.S. Supreme Court” by Kjetil Ree. CC BY-SA 2.5.
 

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