Feinstein: Supreme Court Nomination Process ‘Unprecedented,’ Should be Delayed

Washington—Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today delivered remarks on the rush to vote on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court before the committee has finished her hearing.

Full text of her remarks follow, and video is available here:

“As far as I know, this is being done without any precedent – in the time at least I’ve been on this committee, which is about 25 years.

It’s being done, I guess, to show power and push someone through and really abrogate the value of hearings that this committee should treasure and respect.

As somebody that’s been on this committee for a while I’ve really come to value the hearings and the search for information and the desire to do justice to individuals.

So I really don’t understand why it makes a difference whether it’s two weeks or three weeks or four weeks; it allows us to complete a process which we have put in place that has worked, I think, very well over time.

And once we do this, we breach – I was going to say the etiquette of the committee, I’m not sure etiquette is the right word – but it breaches everything that we have held dear and the processes that we have moved forward with.

So I very much hope this does not happen. There’s no need for it and it’s going to create a lot of bad will that doesn’t need to be created.”