Two ‘ladies in waiting’ star during hearing B
oth of them are highly educated and well seasoned in American law. Amy Coney Barrett and Kamala Harris are on the front step of two highly valued government positions, waiting for high-grade promotions.
Barrett has been nominated as a prospect to become a Supreme Court justice. Harris was a US senator and has been nominated as the nation’s vice president on the Democratic ticket.
They met Tuesday in the glare of bright lights seen around the world during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
They both spoke politely in the legal nomenclature with which they are familiar.
Harris charged that Barrett had been selected by President Trump solely because she would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“Prior to your nomination, were you aware of President Trump’s statements committing to nominate Judges who will strike down the Affordable Care Act? And I’d appreciate a yes or no answer,” Harris, a former prosecutor, said.
Barrett said she wanted to “be very careful” with her answer because she was under oath.
“As I’m sitting here, I don’t recall seeing those statements, but if … let’s see, I don’t recall seeing or hearing those statements, but I don’t really know what context they were in, so I guess I can’t really definitely give you a yes or no answer,” she said.
A week after the Nov. 3 presidential election that has the Biden-Harris ticket winning by a significant margin, the Supreme Court will rule in Texas v. California, a case that, if decided in favor of Texas, could nullify a key provision of the Obama-era health law, which extended insurance coverage to millions.
“Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Senate Republicans’ number one priority has been to tear it down,” Harris said.
As other Democrats have pointed out, there have been 70 such legislative efforts in Washington. All of them have come to naught.
Later, as she was being questioned by Harris about immigration, Barrett said, “every case has consequences on peoples’ lives” and that considering those real-life consequences was “part of the judicial-making progress.”
That was at odds with her opt-repeated promise to consider only the original meaning of the Constitution when deciding cases.
During a nearly a 12-hour question-and-answer session, Barrett evaded Democratic senators’ attempts to pin down her views on the ACA, abortion rights, gay marriage and a possible election-related case.
Her refusal to discuss specific cases or commit to recusing from particular matters was in line with a decades-old playbook used by Supreme Court nominees to avoid giving substantive answers during confirmation hearings.
But her attempts to deflect such questions were more conspicuous than usual, given how explicit President Trump has been about how he would want his nominees to rule.