Editor’s note: This press release was provided by the Progressive Women of Pelham. The Pelham Examiner publishes press releases in the form received as a service to the community.

June 25, 2022, Pelham, New York: In response to the release of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Progressive Women of Pelham wrote today to Majority Leader Senator Charles Schumer (NY) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) to urge immediate action to restore the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The recent string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions lack consistency in legal reasoning,” said PWP Policy Director Deborah Lowery Knapp. “Further in Dobbs, for the first time in history, the Court deprives rather than safeguards human rights. These departures reveal a rogue Court that is guided by ideology and not Constitutional law.”

The Court is a foundational institution of our country that has been compromised, and with it, our democracy. We call upon our Senators to rectify the illegitimate installation of three Justices and the unfolding revelations about the ethics violations of a fourth. Board Member Van Tran adds, “so long as this Court is allowed to remain compromised, shattering public faith in its credibility, we are lost.” We therefore implore Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to take the following immediate actions:

• Discard the filibuster tool; it has become an obstruction to representative governance;
• Pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, ensuring equitable access to abortion and all reproductive healthcare to every person in our country, and restoring faith in our government to protect and serve the people;
• Begin an investigation of ethics violations by Justice Clarence Thomas, under the Senate’s authority to consider impeachment and removal;
• Under that same authority, begin an investigation of any Justice against whom there are credible accusations of sexual assault;
• Enact legislation to expand the Court by two Justices, to rectify the illegitimate installation of Justices Gorsuch and Coney Barrett;
• Enact legislation to reconstitute the Court to operate in a manner that shields it from partisanship, similar in operation to the Federal Courts of Appeals, with a “banc” of 15 Justices that hears cases in smaller panels by draw.

The rollback of rights that has been begun by this Supreme Court is oppressive and fails to uphold the rights guaranteed by settled Constitutional law. This two hundred-year old experiment is crumbling, while Democrats control the legislature. Says Executive Board member Melissa Labonte, “after two years of failed entreaties to bipartisanship, it’s time to be guided by the tenets of our principles rather than the maintenance of power. The time to govern is now, and we call upon all Democratic leaders to commit to leadership, and to take bold action to restore our democracy.”