SCOTUS nominee visits Capitol
WASHINGTON — Amy Coney Barrett’s Capitol Hill path to the Supreme Court began on Tuesday with courtesy calls unlike any other Supreme Court nominee’s — sans handshakes, amid the homestretch of a heated presidential campaign and without the traditional veteran politician who serves as a guide, or sherpa, to the ways of the Senate.
Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had a full day of meetings with senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, Senate President Pro Tempore Charles E. Grassley and other key Republicans ahead of her confirmation hearings.
The judge from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arrived in the Senate alongside Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Pence Chief of Staff Marc Short and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a White House entourage that embodied the administration’s commitment to getting a third justice confirmed during Trump’s first term.
The nominee and the vice president both donned masks as they reached the top of the East Front steps and entered the Capitol, but the masks were off by the time they were settled into the Senate’s Mansfield Room for brief remarks and a photo op. McConnell’s mask lay crumpled on the yellow upholstered chair behind him.
Pence said he looked forward to the Senate voting in the “near future” on Barrett’s confirmation.
“We truly do believe Judge Barrett represents the best of America,” said Pence of his fellow Hoosier.
McConnell declined to answer questions about whether the judge should recuse herself if legal challenges to the election between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden land at the high court.
The majority leader met with Barrett for a little under an hour, and Meadows told reporters it was “the start of a very long process, but went well.” He wouldn’t comment on what McConnell and Barrett talked about.
Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer previously said he wouldn’t meet with her and explained his decision Tuesday on ABC’s “The View.”
“I don’t think meeting with her would change anything and the process was so illegitimate that I don’t want to validate it,” he said of the truncated confirmation process, coming just as voters begin casting ballots.
Schumer said he still hopes enough GOP senators will vote “no” to block her confirmation, but acknowledged there is not much Democrats alone can do to stop it. “It’s an uphill fight; I don’t deny that,” he said.
Schumer and other Democrats have criticized the GOP for their about-face from their 2016 position that a Supreme Court nomination in a presidential election year should not get a vote until the voters have spoken.
That was the line of reasoning McConnell and others used to deny Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016, a hearing and votes.
Particularly irksome for Democrats
is that Republicans like Graham said they would respect that precedent, then flip-flopped after Ginsburg died on Sept. 18. McConnell says there is precedent for confirming a justice in such circumstances, but the Barrett situation is unique.
Meanwhile, Grassley, a former Judiciary chairman who wielded the gavel during the confirmations of Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, met with Barrett Tuesday afternoon and noted to reporters that the two were already well acquainted.
“It’s not like she’s starting out brand new with me,” Grassley said, noting that he also chaired the committee during her 2017 circuit court confirmation process.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about her stellar qualifications,” he said, and that “she’s also well known for mentoring women in the law,” much like Justice Ginsburg.
There is little doubt how Grassley will vote, but as he did as Judiciary chairman, he said he is holding out a decision.
He said she has a “good chance of getting my vote,” but qualified that he won’t officially decide until the main parts of the confirmation process is over.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota said watching her go through her confirmation to the 7th Circuit in 2017 gave him confidence in Barrett.
“So we’re looking forward now to the processes before, and obviously she needs to go through a lot of meetings with individual senators this week and then get prepared for the hearings to come but we think that the president made a great selection,” Thune told reporters.