WASHINGTON, DC, June 11, 2010 – This afternoon the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance Cory Wilson, nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Wilson has an extreme record on health care and voting rights, two issues prominently impacting the country right now. Wilson has described the Affordable Care Act as “perverse” and “illegitimate,” claimed that it subsidizes “working less,” and called on the Supreme Court to strike it down. Wilson has also endorsed voter ID laws and voter roll purges, falsely claiming they don’t have the same disparate impact on minority voters in his home state of Mississippi as they do in other states.
Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron issued the following statement:
“Just two days after a disastrous Georgia primary election disenfranchised voters across the state, Senate Republicans saw fit to advance the nomination of Cory Wilson, whose record on voting rights is disastrous for people of color. When civil rights groups decried Mississippi’s voter ID law, Wilson dismissed their concerns as ‘poppycock’ and derided them as ‘rent-a-mobs.’ We’re also still in the midst of a pandemic that has been particularly deadly for Black Americans, but Wilson is eager to overturn the Affordable Care Act and take health care away from 20 million people. Senate Republicans may claim to care about health care and racial justice, but their votes on judges tell the real story about their priorities.”