Why Amy Coney Barrett should suspend her own nomination
For Amy Coney Barrett of theUniversity ofNotreDame, where she and I are both professors, her nomination to theU.S. Supreme Court represents the crowning achievement of her legal career.
Widely regarded as a conservative in the mold of her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett has been praised as a brilliant scholar, a beloved teacher and a devoted mother. While Democrats are alarmed by the direction Barrett might take the court, there appears to be little they can do to stop it. Given the Republican majority in the Senate, Barrett’s confirmation as the next justice seems all but assured.
That iswhy it is vital thatmyNotre Dame colleague issue a public statement calling for an immediate halt to her nomination until after theNovember presidential election.
There are three reasons Barrett should take this unprecedented step.
First, voting for the next president is already underway. According to the United States Election Project, more than 7 million people have cast their ballots, and millions more are likely to vote before ElectionDay. The rushed nature of Barrett’s nomination, an exercise of rawpower politics by SenateMajority Leader MitchMcConnell, will effectively deprive the American people of a voice in selecting the next Supreme Court justice.
Judge Barrett is not responsible for the anti-democratic machinations driving her nomination. Nor is she complicit in the hypocrisy of fasttracking her nominationweeks before a presidential election when the Republican Senate refused to grantMerrick Garland somuch as a hearing a full year before the last election. Yet Barrett can refuse to be party to such maneuvers. She can honor the democratic process by insisting the hearings be put on hold until after the voters have made their choice.
Second, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wishwas that her seat on the court remain open until a new presidentwas installed. At her nomination ceremony at the White House, Barrett praised Justice Ginsburg as “awoman of enormous talent and consequence, whose life of public service serves as an example to us all.” Barrett’s nomination just days after Ginsburg’s deathwas unseemly and a repudiation of her legacy.
Barrett can repair the injury to Ginsburg’s memory by calling for a pause in the nomination until the next president is seated.
Finally, Barrett’s nomination comes at a treacherous moment in theUnited States. Our politics are consumed by polarization, mistrust and fevered conspiracy theories. Our country is shaken by pandemic and economic suffering. There is violence in the streets of American cities. The politics of this nomination, as Barrett surely understands, will further inflame our civicwounds, undermine confidence in the court and deepen the divide among ordinary citizens, especially if the judge is seated by a Republican Senateweeks before the election of a Democratic president and Congress.
To ask Barrett to halt her nomination is asking a lot. Should former Vice President Joe Biden be elected, Barrett’s seat on the court will almost certainly be lost. The honor of a lifetimewould be gone. Thatwould be painful, surely. Yet there is much Barrett stands to gain in risking her seat.
In calling for her nomination to be delayed, Barrettwould earn the respect of fair-minded people everywhere. Shewould provide amodel of civic selflessness. And she mightwell inspire Americans of different beliefs toward a renewed commitment to the common good.
I congratulate my Notre Dame colleague, JudgeAmy Coney Barrett, on her singular honor. And I hope she will insist that her nomination be halted until after the election.