Blumenthal preps for Barrett confirmation

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., spent much of his week wading through eight binders of speeches, statements, opinions and news articles in preparation for the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which start Monday.

“That’s only part of what I’m reviewing,” Blumenthal said, adding “Compared to the previous two nominees, we’ve had only a fraction of the time, which has greatly constrained our scrutiny and review.”

Next week, the committee will take the first steps in what is expected to be an expedited process to give Barrett a lifetime appointment to the bench. Senators will make opening statements Monday and then have two days to question Barrett. That will be followed by committee debate and a vote by the committee on or around Oct. 22. That would place the full Senate vote less than two weeks before the election.

When asked if Barrett would be confirmed before Nov. 3, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,

R-Ky., said Tuesday on Fox News, “That’s the plan, and there’s nothing I can see that would keep that from happening.”

Democrats have been adamant that a vote should not occur before the election, so the people can weigh in the nomination with their vote for president — the reasoning Republicans seized on in 2016 when delaying the confirmation hearings for nominee Merrick Garland. But in the minority, Democrats have few options to slow the march to confirmation, never mind stop it.

Blumenthal said Friday that Democrats continue to discuss strategies. In an interview Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said “whatever tools there are, we’ll use,” but said there weren’t many left and called it an “uphill fight.”

In the review process, Democrats have located documents and lecture records elucidating her opposition to Roe v. Wade, items they say Barrett failed to disclose to the Senate. They plan to attack her previous writings criticizing decisions that upheld the Affordable Care Act.

Shortly after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last month, former Vice President Joe Biden, his running mate U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer met to plan their strategy to attack the confirmation process. The four Democrats settled on one area of focus, health care, Schumer said.

Preservation of the Affordable Care Act has been a battle cry of Biden’s presidential campaign ever since. It will be significant theme of Democrats’ questions and statements during confirmation hearings, too.

Blumenthal said he plans to question Barrett on legal protections for preexisting conditions and her position on the Obama health care law, in addition to her statements on abortion and reproductive rights. He called her an “activist,” who will “legislate from the bench” to overturn legal precedents in support of her conservative agenda.

Republicans have celebrated her intellect, faith and conservative values, championing her as a “highly qualified nominee.”

Barrett, 48, is a judge on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the

7th Circuit and was confirmed to that position by the Senate in 2017. A professor at Notre Dame Law School, she’s a practicing Catholic and mother of seven who has been applauded for her commitment to students.

Barrett has met in private with Republican senators and six Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee held a phone call with her. Blumenthal, who declined to meet with Barrett, did not participate in the call.

The hearings are expected to proceed in a hybrid, virtual and in-person fashion. Two senators on the committee, Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, were diagnosed with coronavirus last week, after President Donald Trump announced he was positive, revealing a wider outbreak at the White House.

Democratic senators have called for testing of all senators and staff before the hearing, but Republicans have declined to get tested unless their doctors advise it due to a close contact with a COVID-19 positive person. Blumenthal tested negative Friday, he said, and planned to get tested again Sunday.

Barrett