NJ groups rally efforts for and against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

President Donald Trump nominated D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
This is the second time that President Trump has nominated a conservative judge to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is a former clerk of Kennedy’s, who announced his retirement. Kennedy often served as the swing vote on the court.
Kavanaugh has New Jersey activists on both sides preparing for a fight while lawmakers consider the nomination.
New Jersey Citizen Action is planning on protesting the nomination. They say that Kavanaugh is not the right person to be on the bench.
“This is scary. This has been scary. It’s been scary ever since Donald Trump was elected because we knew what he was going to go after,” says health care activist Ann Vardeman.
Vardeman says that she fears that Kavanaugh would rule in favor of a lawsuit to declare pre-existing conditions unconstitutional. She also fears that he will support the overturning Roe v. Wade, affecting legal abortions in the country.
“It means that we need to do as much as we can here in New Jersey to protect the rights that we already have. To not allow the Supreme Court and Congress to roll back decades and decades of progress,” she says.
But supporters of Kavanaugh say that issues like abortion and gay marriage are ultimately legislated through Congress and not the Supreme Court.
“I think that’s a distraction conversation, so a lot of folks are talking about all the political agenda,” says Erica Jednynak from the conservative think-tank Americans For Prosperity. “We don’t want someone to legislate from the bench, or we don’t want someone to make law. We want someone to interpret the Constitution.”
Both groups say that they are planning on grassroots efforts to reach out to lawmakers about the nomination.