Barrett pledges to be apolitical
Supreme Court nominee speaks little on first day of confirmation hearing
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett presented herself to the nation Monday as a humble and apolitical judge, opening a pandemic-altered Senate confirmation hearing that Democrats tried to make as much about health care, COVID -19 and President Donald Trump as about Barrett’s qualifications.
It was the start of what will be an acrimonious four days, as Republicans embark just weeks before Election Day on a historic move to lock in a long-sought 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and perhaps boost Trump’s and their own re-election prospects.
Democrats acknowledged there is little they can do to stop Barrett’s confirmation. So they seemed determined to use the hearings to portray Republicans as a threat to the Affordable Care Act, and the nomination as a last-ditch effort to save Trump should next month’s election lead to litigation in the Supreme Court.
On optics alone, Sen. Cory Booker, D -N.J., seemed to speak for everyone when he said, “There is nothing about this that is normal.”
The nominee, who spoke for just 12 minutes, wore a black face mask for nearly the entire hearing. Several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee participated remotely, one because he has tested positive for the coronavirus. In a first, the Architect of the Capitol submitted a letter certifying that the hearing room met Centers for Disease Control and Prevention safety regulations.
And when the 48-yearold Barrett, nominated by Trump after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’s death less than a month ago, finally spoke, it was from a table that had just been cleared of anti-bacterial wipes and hand sanitizer.
She rarely strayed from remarks released by the White House on Sunday, in which she pledged a nonpartisan and deferential approach to judging.
“The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people,” said Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor who for the past three years has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. “The
public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.”
She added: “I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written. And I believe I can serve my country by playing that role.”
But Barrett, with her husband, Jesse, and six of her seven children behind her, was largely a bystander on the hearing ’s opening day.
Instead, Republicans and Democrats on the committee talked at each other for about five hours. Questioning of the judge will begin Tuesday morning.
Barrett’s replacement of the liberal Ginsburg would be the court’s biggest ideological swing since Justice Clarence Thomas took the seat of retiring civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall nearly 30 years ago.
Democrats portrayed Barrett’s “rushed” nomination as, variously, an attempt to install a justice who will oppose the Affordable Care Act in a case to be heard next month, a backstop for what the president has said is likely to be a contested election outcome and a power grab by Republicans.
The Republican-led Senate in 2016 refused even to grant a hearing when President Barack Obama that March nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died the previous month.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., pledged at the time he would never consider someone nominated in a presidential election year. He only obliquely referred to the broken pledge Monday.
“There’s nothing unconstitutional about this process,” said Graham, who four years ago told people to “use my words against me” if he backtracked. “This is a vacancy that’s occurred, the tragic loss of a great woman. And we’re going to fill that vacancy with another great woman. The bottom line here is that the Senate is doing its duty constitutionally.”
There seems little Democrats can do to prevent a narrow majority of Republicans to confirm her in a floor vote, which Graham said would come Oct. 29.