The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen below and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.
“We have a far-right extreme majority on the Supreme Court,” asserts James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont ACLU. “At no point in our lifetime has the Supreme Court been so far out of step with where most of the country is.”
This week, just days before a national election, the Republican-led Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The confirmation was rammed through in record time just four years after Republicans refused to give a hearing to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, because they insisted that eight months before an election was too soon. Barrett is now part of a 6-3 conservative majority, the most conservative court since the 1930s.
We examine the implications of the new Supreme Court in key areas. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, discusses the future of reproductive rights. Ghita Schwarz, a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, talks about the implications for civil liberties and immigrant rights. And Vermont ACLU executive director James Lyall discusses how the new Supreme Court majority could affect Vermont.
