WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) spoke to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business and Greta Brawner on C-SPAN this morning about his support for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald J. Trump’s nominee to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who is set to be confirmed by the Senate tonight. Excerpts and links to the interviews are below.

Fox Business

On the Senate taking up Judge Barrett’s nomination this year:

I am here because of this. I am a product of the Brett Kavanaugh fiasco two years ago. My opponent was a sitting Democrat who joined in the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh and voted against him. My voters rejected that in a big way … So this is the moment that I’m not going to shrink from, for sure. I think it's going to be a great pleasure to vote for her.”

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C-SPAN

On voting on Judge Barrett’s nomination before the election:

“Imagine if I said to my constituents in North Dakota, ‘Look, I know you all sent me here to help put smart conservatives on the Supreme Court, and I know we have been given this opportunity shortly before the election but, gee, maybe I should just wait and see if Joe Biden wins so he can name the Supreme Court Justice?’ I would be recalled and rightfully so. Not only do I have no concerns, I’m grateful we have this moment and opportunity. I’m certainly not going to shrink from it that but rather step up to it.”

On Judge Barrett’s record:

“I focused specifically on the role of states and the role of federalism. I have seen in my six years in the House, two years in the Senate, even prior to that as a state regulator, I have seen the federal government get larger and larger and impose more and more of its overreach on our oversight at the state level. So 10 years as a regulator, I oftentimes saw the federal government imposing its mediocracy on North Dakota’s excellence and resented it, and so did the people of North Dakota. Now there are big issues like Waters of the U.S., and the Clean Power Plan, but there are many, many, many other issues at the bureaucratic level where the federal government is always overstepping its bounds and the court has been the only thing that has defended states’ rights and states’ sovereignty. So, for me, I really focused my discussion with her on what she sees as the role of states in this cooperative federalism that we are experimenting with as the freest country in the world. I was very satisfied in her grasp of the issue and certainly her commitment to federalism as a jurist.”

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