Barrett vows at hearing: Will not be Trump’s pawn
Judge Amy Coney Barrett flatly refused Tuesday to pledge that she would recuse herself if a dispute over the Nov. 3 election came before the Supreme Court, insisting that despite her nomination by President Donald Trump, she would not “allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people.”
Overmore than nine tense hours of questioning, Barrett evaded Democratic senators’ efforts to pin down her views on the Affordable Care Act, abortion rights, gaymarriage and other issues, including a possible election-related case. She played down her history of taking conservative stances in legal writings and personal statements, arguing that she might view issues differently as a sitting justice.
“I have notmade any commitments or deals or anything like that,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee as Democrats took turns challenging her during her second day of confirmation hearings. “I’m not here on a missiontodestroytheAffordable CareAct. I’mjust here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law.”
After days of hammering Barrett over the health care law, Democrats dismissed her assurances as essentially meaningless. Trump did not need to secure any specific promises from Barrett, they argued. He selected her precisely because her honestly held legal views would achieve the end he is after.
“I am left with looking at the tracks of your recordand where it leads the American people,” said Sen. AmyKlobuchar, D-Minn., “and I think it leads us to a place that’s going to have severe repercussions for them.”
In early evening questioning, Sen. KamalaHarris took ameasured approach that reflected her new role as vice presidential nominee, making policy points intended to distinguish the Biden-Harris ticket without alienating voterswhomay still be struggling to decide.
Appearing remotely on video, and using most of her 30 minutes to sound the alarmover thedangersahead if the court overturns the AffordableCare Act and awoman’s right to abortion, Harris steered clear of the combative
confrontations she’d become famous for in previous showdowns in Senate hearings.
Barrett’s refusal to discuss specific cases or commit to recusing from particularmatterswas in linewith a decades-old playbook used by Supreme Court nominees to avoid giving substantive answers during confirmation hearings. But her attempts to deflect such questionsweremore conspicuous than usual, given howexplicit Trump has been about how he would want his Supreme Court nominees to rule.
The president has stated that he wants Barrett confirmedbyElectionDay given that he anticipates an election dispute and is “counting” on the court to “look at the ballots.” And he has said he wants justices who would “do the right thing” and invalidate the Affordable Care Act.
“This is what President Trumpsaid. This iswhat your party platform says: Reverse the Obamacare cases,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse,
D-R.I., addressing Republican senators. “Why is it surprising for us to be concerned that you want this nominee to do what you want nominees to do?”
Republicans, rushing to secure Barrett’s confirmation before the election, lavished her with praise for her legal qualifications and personal virtues. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the judiciary panel’s chairman, called her “one of the most qualified people of your generation,” while Sen. John Cornyn of Texas encouraged her toholduptheblanknotepad in front ofher at thewitness table to show that she was speaking entirely without notes.
“That is
Cornyn said.
Themarathon day of televised questioning offered senators andAmericans their first detailed lookatBarrett’s conservative legal philosophy, heavily influenced by former Justice Antonin Scalia, and a window into her personal life as a 48-year-old judge and
impressive,”
mother of seven children.
Barrett was most eager to discuss her legal philosophy on broad strokes. She expounded at length on the tenets of textualism and originalism, approaches made popular by Scalia that privilege plain reading of legal texts and seek to minimize a judge’s own interpretations of statute or the Constitution.
Pressed by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Barrett said she would take the question of recusal on any election-related cases “very seriously,” but pointed to strict guidelines that govern such matters rather than making a commitment in advance. Coons was far from the first Democrat to raise the issue, andBarrett at one point grew impatient.
“I would certainly hope that allmembers of this committeewouldhavemore confidence in my integrity than to think that I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people,” she said.
On the Affordable Care Act, an issue Democrats see as central to their success in next month’s elections, Barrett offered even less insight into her thinking.
At one point, Klobuchar displayeda2015Twitterpost by Trump in which he said as president he would appoint judges who would “do the right thing unlike Bush’s appointee John Roberts on ObamaCare.” The tweet was a reference to Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinions that left the health lawin place.
“I can’t speak to what the president has said on Twitter,” Barrett said. “He hasn’t said any of that tome.”
Barrett also resisted attempts by Democrats to argue that her own academic writing criticizing Roberts meant she would certainly vote to strike it down in the case currently before the court.
“One of the upsides of being an academic is you can speak for yourself,” she told Klobuchar. “It’s difficult for me to say how I would have decided that case if I had to go through the whole process of judiciary decisionmaking.”
Besides, she told Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, thepanel’s topDemocrat, the legal question nowbefore the court — whether the entire lawmust be struck downbecause one part of it has been deemed flawed, or whether the flawed part is “severable” from the rest — poses a different question.
Democrats likewise argued that as conservatives promised, Barrett would most likely be a vote to chip away or outright strike down the Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights. The nominee gave them little help, though.
When Feinstein reminded Barrett that Scalia had famouslywritten that Roewas wrongly decided and should be overturned, Barrett refused to clarify her own views.
Still, she said later that she did not consider Roe “superprecedent,” which she defined as “precedent that is so well established that it would be unthinkable that it would ever be overruled.” Democrats took the answer tomean shewould be open to overturning the ruling.