On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) reacted to a federal court ruling invalidating FDA approval of an abortion pill by stating that “the Biden administration should ignore this ruling.”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “I think we’ve been preparing and anticipating for there being these egregious overreaches by members of the judiciary appointed by a right-wing Republican Party, whose goal for a very long time was to just pack these courts with partisan judges, often underqualified or completely unqualified for their role. And so, there has been thought, I believe, given to this. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has already issued statements, for example, advising what we should do in a situation like this — which I concur — which is that I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling. I think that we — the courts have the legitimacy and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings, and what they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts. It is the justices themselves, through the deeply partisan and unfounded nature of these rulings that are undermining their own enforcement.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “But is that — do we want to live in a world where the government can decide to ignore a federal court ruling?”
Ocasio-Cortez responded, “Well, no — of — I mean, I do think that this — that it raises a — these important questions. And I do think that when we look at — and there are serious questions at the FDA and the Biden administration’s going to have to figure out how exactly we map this out. But, on the other hand, what we are also seeing is a power grab over our courts, in which the laws passed by Congress and the rules and policies passed by the executive branch now are going to require unanimous consent from 650 district court judges, many of which are appointed with even the American Bar Association saying that they’re completely unfit for the role.”
Later, Cooper asked, “You’re saying that they should not — they should just ignore this judge?”
Ocasio-Cortez answered, “I think what we need to see here — and we saw — and there is precedent for this. And the precedent for it escalated in the Supreme Court back 100 years ago when there were these mounting pressures with, then, FDR and the Supreme Court, where the supreme — there was concern about the Supreme Court truly expanding its reach and abusing its power. And, when we have a system of checks and balances, there is the question of who is the check on the Supreme Court? You have the check on the presidency. You have the check on Congress through veto power, and you have the check on the presidency with overriding. You have the check on both with the Supreme Court in their rulings, but what is the check on the Supreme Court? And that is up to the president of the United States and Congress.”
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