Dem Senators Declare 'All-Out War' On SCOTUS Over 2nd Amendment Case

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., walks through the Senate Reception Room following the weekly policy luncheon with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The Supreme Court is set to hear its first 2nd Amendment case in a decade and that’s got Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in a tizzy and sending warnings to SCOTUS.

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No really.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York alleges New York’s rules about transporting legal guns to homes or ranges outside the city are unconstitutional. Back in July, New York City officials tried to keep the case from going to the Supreme Court by asking justices to reconsider hearing the case because recent city regulatory changes rendered the issue moot.

In a letter last week, New York City Assistant Corporation Counsel Richard Dearing told the Supreme Court’s clerk that there is no longer a “controversy because the new city regulation gives petitioners everything they have sought in this lawsuit.”

Mr. Dearing added: “The new state law, upon signature by the Governor, will make the case doubly moot.”

In short, Democrats really don’t want a Supreme Court with Brett Kavanaugh instead of Anthony Kennedy hearing a 2nd Amendment case. Here’s how Think Progress describes efforts by Democratic Senators to warn the court, if SCOTUS determines it will still take up the case, about what they say is playing politics:

Whitehouse is one of five senators (the others are Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)) who filed a brief earlier this week in a Second Amendment case the Supreme Court’s Republican majority could use to dismantle what remains of America’s gun regulations. Whitehouse is also the lead (and only) counsel on the brief.

The brief itself is less a legal document than a declaration of war. Though parts of it argue that the high court lacks jurisdiction over this case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, the thrust of the brief is that the Supreme Court is dominated by political hacks selected by the Federalist Society, and promoted by the National Rifle Association — and that if those hacks don’t watch out, the American people are going to rebel against them.

And Whitehouse concludes the brief with a threat. “The Supreme Court is not well,” he writes, “and the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics’.”

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Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee for their warning, saying Whitehouse’s words are a thinly veiled reference to the Democrat pipe dream of expanding the Supreme Court to allow for more liberal justices.

Graham also tweeted his response to the suggestion that the Supreme Court is not well.

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