New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on President Joe Biden to ignore a Texas judge’s ruling halting the approval of a medication abortion pill during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Friday.
“I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The congresswoman said conservative jurists have undermined their legitimacy through the “deeply partisan and unfounded nature” of these rulings.
Ocasio-Cortez said a court’s decision “relies on enforcement, and it is up to the Biden administration to enforce — to choose whether or not to enforce such a ruling.”
Pushed by Cooper on whether the lawmaker wanted a system where the federal government ignores the judiciary, Ocasio-Cortez said the FDA and the Biden administration will consider the merits of several legal challenges and decide “how exactly we mapped this out.”
But the congresswoman said a Republican “power grab” in the judiciary has created a situation in which the legitimacy of their rulings is in doubt.
Asked again if she thinks the Biden administration should flatly ignore the ruling, Ocasio-Cortez said the presidency and Congress can and should act as a check on the judiciary, but she did not outline a specific course of action as it pertains to the Biden administration’s tack on the abortion ruling.
Some key context: US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who made the ruling halting the abortion pill’s FDA approval, is an appointee of former President Donald Trump and known as a deeply conservative jurist.
During his presidency, Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell placed a heavy focus on confirming more than 200 judicial nominees, leaving a significant imprint on the judiciary that could last for decades.
Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats have been “preparing and anticipating for there being these egregious overreaches by members of the judiciary,” saying its a natural progression from Republican efforts to “pack these courts with partisan judges.”
Remember: The Texas ruling is on hold for seven days so the federal government can appeal. The decision is complicated further by the ruling of a second federal judge in Washington state, who said the drug must remain on the market in more than a dozen Democratic-led states.
CNN’s Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
