Topic category:  Partisan Politics

Wendy Long September 15, 2016 Press Release:

Long Blasts Schumer for his #1 Priority: Liberal Left Wing Supreme Court

New York, NY -- U.S. Senate Republican nominee in New York, Wendy Long, today made the following statement:

"Chuck Schumer announced that -- if he defeats me on November 8 and becomes Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate -- his 'number one goal . . . is to get a progressive Supreme Court.'

"This is utterly astonishing on several levels:

"One, his top priority is certainly no longer 'fighting for the middle class.' He knows his record on that score has created a consistently low growth economy, hovering just over 1 percent, with 90 million persons unemployed, with real wages stagnant for decades, and upstate New York in economic ruin because of the lack of industry and jobs. He's finally ditching the middle class as his top priority because he realizes he's pretty well killed them off by now anyway.

"Two, he is saying that he will aggressively push for his Supreme Court to: effectively repeal the Second Amendment; eliminate all limits on the power of Congress to legislate in areas of traditional state sovereignty; validate a constitutional right to partial birth abortion; end the rights of citizens and interest groups to express political opinions in elections; permit race-based gerrymandering of election districts; deny religious groups and individuals such as the Little Sisters of the Poor their religious free exercise rights; end free speech in universities; find and declare new substantive rights to public assistance and to transgender bathrooms and other accommodations; and import foreign laws to trump provisions of the United States Constitution.

"And you can be sure he would use every possible procedural weapon in his arsenal to accomplish this -- of course hypocritically because he has previously held Republicans to a standard in confirmation battles that he does not observe himself.

"And Three, Schumer made his announcement in a policy workshop with Al Sharpton and his National Action Network. What would have been the reaction of the media, political, university, and government elite if Donald Trump or I had attended such a policy meeting with Rev. Franklin Graham, or with Father George Rutler or Father Gerald Murray here in New York City, to strategize about political goals and about a takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court?

"Our conservative position is that Chuck Schumer is free to meet with religious leaders (even faux religious leaders) and to involve them in the fight for political and judicial goals. But as with many things, this is a double standard of the kind Schumer and Clinton routinely employ. One set of rules for them, and a different set for the rest of us.

"The point is, an unconstitutional damper has been put on churches and religious groups and individuals from participating fully in the civic affairs of our nation for far too long. Donald Trump will end this perverse policy by, among other things, repealing the Johnson Amendment."

Long's press release followed this September 7, 2016 article by Niels Lesniewski (www.rollcall.com/news/politics/schumer-calls-progressive-supreme-court-number-one-goal) reporting Schumer prioritizing a "progressive Supreme Court."

Schumer Calls Progressive Supreme Court His 'Number One Goal'

New York Democrat says he 'will make it happen' as majority leader

Sen. Charles E. Schumer is making it no secret that he's preparing to do what's necessary to make sure the Supreme Court tilts to the left next year.

"My number one goal, should I become majority leader with your help, is to get a progressive Supreme Court," the New York Democrat told a policy conference hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network Wednesday morning.

"A progressive majority on the Supreme Court is an imperative, and if I become majority leader, I will make it happen," Schumer said. "I will make it happen."

Since the 2016 Senate electoral map would likely only yield Democrats a narrow majority under the most optimistic circumstances, the comments are an early indication that Schumer could be open to making procedural changes to enable confirmation of a more outwardly progressive Supreme Court nominee.

Under current precedents, Supreme Court nominations still require 60 votes to overcome filibuster threats, since they were not included in the changes pushed through in November 2013 by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"This community knows better than any other how important the progressive Supreme Court is," Schumer told the African-American audience.

"When the Congress turned its back on this community — Democrats and Republicans — there was only one group that stood firm, and that was the U.S. Supreme Court," Schumer said.

The office building where Schumer spoke was named for Richard Russell, a Georgia Democrat and leading opponent of civil rights.

Outside the Supreme Court, a separate group of Senate Democrats joined by former clerks to current nominee Merrick Garland, made another push in front of a group of reporters and television cameras, calling on Senate Republicans to act on the long-stalled nomination.

President Barack Obama nominated Garland, chief judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in March to fill the high court vacancy created by the death of late Justice Antonin Scalia. But Senate Republicans have vowed to not hold hearings or a vote until after the November elections.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said Tuesday that he was going to invoke a provision in the Senate's rules to curtail the amount of committee business that may take place. The move was the latest protest of the Senate GOP's agenda, and to the decision not to take up the Garland confirmation.

In an interview with The New York Times over the August recess, Reid suggested that a new Democratic majority (led by Schumer) may need to ponder further limits on filibusters.

Reid said if Republicans were to lose the majority and not change course on the use of delay tactics, "the Senate is going to have to wind up being a democracy."

During his remarks on Wednesday, Schumer criticized Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., particularly for the Supreme Court's decision to upend preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

"One of the first things he did is eviscerate the Voting Rights Act," Schumer said. "I sometimes wake up at night wondering what these Supreme Court justices are thinking."

But, he predicted that the Shelby County v. Holder decision on voting rights would be overturned by a Supreme Court with the kind of progressive justices he would prioritize confirming as majority leader.

"I know that the NAACP legal defense and all of the other funds will go right to that court and it is my belief, based on reading of the law, that the Supreme Court's decision will be reversed," Schumer said.

ELECT WENDY LONG TO SAVE SCOTUS AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF INDIVIDUALS TO BEAR ARMS!

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.