Blog Post

Three Things You Should Know About Judicial Nominee Cory Wilson

In the upcoming weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote to advance Trump’s latest extreme judicial pick, Cory Wilson. Cory Wilson is an extreme ideologue whose anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-health care record should be disqualifying for a lifetime position on the courts. Here are three things you should know about his record:

1. He is anti-abortion. Wilson is a former Mississippi State House Representative with a history of taking extreme positions. We’re not saying that politicians can’t make good judges, but we can certainly judge him for his anti-abortion record.  Before getting elected, Mr. Wilson made clear his anti-abortion position in a questionnaire from the Mississippi Right to Life’s State Political Action Committee. He indicated that he would support “complete and immediate reversal of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions;” he would vote to “prevent the use of tax funds for abortion other than to prevent the death of the mother;” and, he would oppose “any attempts to weaken” Mississippi’s existing law requiring parental consent for minors seeking an abortion. He followed through on his anti-abortion views once in office. He voted for bills that would ban abortion as early as 6 weeks and after 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also voted for a bill that would imprison an abortion provider for performing a safe and common abortion procedure and a bill that blocks patients who rely on Medicaid for family planning care from going to their trusted provider, Planned Parenthood.
2. He is hostile toward LGBTQ equality. Even before he was a legislator, Mr. Wilson was a prolific conservative writer who was outspoken about his anti- LGBTQ views. In a 2012 piece, Mr. Wilson wrote that “gay marriage is a pander to liberal interest groups and an attempt to cast Republicans as intolerant, uncaring and even bigoted.”  He continued, “the idea of homosexual marriage was so beyond seriousness that I thought it could never happen. I soon came to see that ‘tolerance,’ as that term is used by liberals, really means zero tolerance for traditional, religious or conservative views. The culture warriors on the left demand unconditional surrender.” In another 2012 piece, he goes as far as to victimize those who oppose gay marriage: “[s]o it has come to this. Private citizens who dare oppose marriage ‘equality’ (read: full sanction of homosexual marriage) will now be bashed, banned, and bankrupted, simply for expressing their views.” As a Mississippi representative, he continued his anti-LGBTQ bias, including voting for one of the nation’s most extreme anti-LGBTQ laws. The law gives broad-sweeping permissions for Mississippians to refuse service to LGBTQ people and people who have sex outside of marriage. For example, it allows state employees to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, public school counselors to turn away LGBTQ youth in crisis, and health care providers to deny transgender people access to healthcare.
3. He strongly opposes the Affordable Care Act. Wilson also wrote several highly partisan pieces vocalizing his opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and President Obama. For example, in a 2012 piece, he attacked President Obama’s support for the ACA, referring to the president as “King Barack.” In another article, he calls the ACA“perverse” and “illegitimate.” At a time when the ACA is under attack, Mr. Wilson’s bias against the ACA is especially troubling.

We are not surprised that the Senate majority would advance such an extreme nominee to the federal judiciary. The Senate’s failure to conduct a full and fair impeachment trial, compounded with its failure to hold a fair and impartial confirmation process for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, gives us even more reason to be deeply doubtful of its ability to fulfill its constitutional obligations. Sadly, with the Senate’s decision to continue processing extreme judicial nominees instead of working to restore our faith in democracy, we will continue to have horrible nominees like Cory Wilson being shoehorned onto the federal judiciary.