Ad buys, day of action and intense campaigning promised in effort to stop supreme court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump’s latest supreme court pick is a “five-alarm fire” for democracy, a leading liberal activist said on Monday, as civil rights groups promised multimillion-dollar ad buys, a day of action and intense campaigning in an effort to stop the nomination.

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Brett Kavanaugh, a US district court judge, was nominated by Trump for the seat held by the retiring Anthony Kennedy. A swing vote on the nine-member court, Kennedy has been seen by some as a “firewall” against attempts to limit or eliminate access to abortion.

“We will have a steady drumbeat of activity through the hearings,” Ilyse Hogue, president of Naral Pro-choice America, told reporters on a call involving six leading civil rights groups.

Ben Winkler, Washington director of the left-leaning MoveOn.org, called Kavanaugh’s nomination “a five-alarm fire for our fundamental rights and our democracy”.

Throughout his campaign and presidency, Trump has promised to appoint supreme court justices who will “automatically” overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 court decision which legalized abortion.

Though Kavanaugh has not explicitly stated he would overturn Roe v Wade, activists believe his endorsement by the conservative Federalist Society, and his dissent in the case of an undocumented 17-year-old immigrant seeking an abortion, prove he would fulfill Trump’s promise.

Justices hold lifetime appointments and their decisions ripple through American life for decades. This is Trump’s second nomination, after the conservative Neil Gorsuch joined the court last year.

Activists said they could not match the sums conservative groups such as Judicial Crisis Network are expected to pour into campaigning around Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. But they said they expected large turnouts at protests and marches and at phone-banks. A day of mass action is planned for 26 August, Women’s Equality Day.

“The grassroots energy on this is very intense, our website actually crashed when we debuted our strategy,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible. “We expect to see a real outpouring leading up to this event and that mass mobilization.”

Republicans hold 51 seats in the 100-member Senate, in which a simple majority is needed to confirm a supreme court pick. Vice-President Mike Pence would act as a tie-breaking vote if one were needed.

The Arizona Republican senator John McCain is absent, coping with brain cancer. Two other Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, support abortion rights and maintaining health insurance access for sick Americans – issues likely to be heard by the supreme court.

Because Murkowski and Collins are pro-choice, activists are focused on securing their votes as well as those of three Democrats from heavily Republican states – Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – who are up for re-election this year and who will be pressured to support Kavanaugh.

Should the Democratic bloc hold and either Republican moderate defect, the GOP will not be able to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterm elections in November.

“It will not be forgotten how they vote,” said Winkler. “Their entire political career will be haunted by their decision on Brett Kavanaugh, and we want them to vote no.”

Activists have already begun, however, to visualize a world where access to abortion is far more restricted.

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“Every state, more or less even if they are conservative, has these liberal bubbles,” said Moumita Ahmed, an organizer for Millennials for Revolution. “We can organize doctors and people to go to these areas and provide these things and create sort of sanctuary cities similar to the ones that are created for immigration.”

Nearly half of the 50 states have already severely restricted abortion, with women forced to travel inconvenient distances to clinics. Should abortion rights be further curtailed, the activists said, systems to keep abortion accessible even in areas where it might no longer be legal would need to be substantially strengthened.

At the same time, scientific advances have led to more women seeking to self-induce abortions. In 2000, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a pill to end a pregnancy. Women are increasingly obtaining the drug over the internet or from Mexico.

“People are engaged like never before,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “We saw that not just with the women’s marches and the teacher walkouts … People are paying attention and watching and you will see that engagement at the ballot box in November.”