Hometown paper slams GOP senator for supporting far-right judges

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) likes to sell himself as a moderate — yet he has spent the month of May rubber-stamping Trump’s far-right, anti-woman, anti-health care judges. And on Wednesday, one Colorado paper had enough.

The Sentinel, based in Aurora, Colorado, blasted Gardner for having “dishonestly tried to assure Colorado voters in 2014 that, if elected, he would not permit erosion of women’s reproductive rights.” Rather than stay true to his word, Gardner “has since voted to approve the nominations of justices who were chosen by President Donald Trump in part because of their likelihood to reverse or debilitate Roe v. Wade.”

The editorial discussed draconian measures passed by  Georgia and Alabama that criminalize both women who seek abortions and doctors who perform them. Gardner and other supposedly moderate senators, the Sentinel argued, are helping extremists push laws that are “an anathema to modern human rights and democracy.”

Despite Gardner’s pro-choice pledge, he has spent the past few weeks furiously supporting efforts by Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to give lifetime appointments to judges who are openly hostile to women’s access to health care, including abortion care.

On Thursday, Gardner voted to give Wendy Vitter a lifetime appointment as a federal judge despite the fact that Vitter accused Planned Parenthood of murdering “150,000 females a year” and made false claims about links between abortion and breast cancer.

Earlier this week, Gardner voted in favor of a lifetime appointment for Michael Truncale, who campaigned against abortion when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2011 and 2012.

Gardner also provided necessary votes this month to confirm J. Campbell Barker, who worked to restrict women’s access to health care in Texas, and Michael Park, who worked to defund Planned Parenthood, for lifetime appointments.

And of course, in 2018 Gardner supported Brett Kavanaugh, an alleged attempted rapist and radical anti-abortion zealot, after Trump nominated him for the Supreme Court.

“Cory Gardner is putting Coloradans at risk by voting for President Trump’s rigid judicial nominees who would undermine health care protections and our basic reproductive freedoms — including Brett Kavanaugh,” Alyssa Roberts, spokesperson for the Colorado Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Gardner has enabled this intrusion into the private relationship between a woman and her doctor, even under the most difficult circumstances.”

Gardner is making a habit of breaking his word to Colorado constituents.

During the 2016 election, Gardner adamantly declared that he would not support Trump’s candidacy after the release of the Access Hollywood tape with Trump admitting he is a serial sexual predator.

At the time, Gardner said he “cannot and will not support someone who brags about degrading and assaulting women.”

But in 2019, Gardner flip-flopped on his position against sexual predators by enthusiastically endorsing Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.

Gardner is so untrustworthy that another Colorado newspaper, the Denver Post, called its 2014 endorsement of Gardner “a mistake.”

Gardner sold himself as a moderate — but he has proved himself perfectly willing to support Trump’s far-right extremism.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.