SUPREME SPHINX
Dems ask: Amy, what you gonna do? But she can’t ‘opine’
Judge Amy Coney Barrett continued to sidestep questions about her legal opinions before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a range of issues Wednesday and even declined to say if she believes President Trump can legally pardon himself, as Republicans barreled ahead with plans to confirm her to the Supreme Court before next month’s election.
Facing her second and final round of questions before the committee, Barrett held fast to the tightlipped strategy she’s embraced since her confirmation hearings began Monday, maintaining she couldn’t comment on any hypotheticals as Democrats tried to pry out answers on how she would handle cases on health care, voting rights, abortion rights and other hot-button topics.
The fate of the Affordable Care Act remained front and center for many of the committee’s Democrats, with the Supreme Court set to hear arguments on Nov. 10 on the Trump administration’s bid to deem the entire health care law unconstitutional — just one week after the general election.
Barrett claimed she’s “not hostile” to the law known as Obamacare, but said she couldn’t offer any opinion on how she might rule in the upcoming case if she’s confirmed because “the canons of judicial conduct would prevent me from expressing a view.”
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a top Democrat on the committee, said Barrett’s real view can be extrapolated from the Republicans’ rush to confirm her before Election Day.
“Why couldn’t we wait till the end of November or December, or even January, after leaving a vacancy on the court for 10 months after Antonin Scalia’s passing?” Durbin said, referring to Republicans blocking President Barack Obama from filling the late Supreme Court justice’s seat in 2016.
“Well, because there is a political agenda here. ... If the president, and those who support him, and those who support the Republican platform are going to keep their promise to end the Affordable Care Act they need that ninth justice, and that’s why it has to be hurried.”
Turning to Barrett, Durbin added, “Unfortunately, that is the cloud — the orange cloud — over your nomination.”
The reticent federal appeals court judge raised some eyebrows when she refused to even offer an opinion on whether Trump could pardon himself if any of the myriad investigations he faces results in criminal charges.
“Because it would be opining on an open question when I haven’t gone through the judicial process to decide it, it’s not one on which I can offer a view,” she said.
Barrett, a 48-year-old mother of seven, also declined to comment on the morality of the Trump administration’s since-rescinded practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S. southern border.
“That’s a matter of hot political debate that I can’t express a view or be drawn into,” said Barrett, whose children were seated behind her in the hearing room.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who asked the question, protested: “These are basic questions of human rights.”
Barrett, who’s vying to replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would solidify a 6-3 right-wing majority on the Supreme Court if confirmed, the most decisive ideological shift on the bench in decades.
If the Supreme Court ultimately rescinds Obamacare, tens of millions of Americans could lose their health care in the middle of a pandemic that’s already killed more than 216,000 people in the U.S.
Pivoting away from health care, Barrett also wouldn’t give a clear answer on what she thought of Scalia’s claim that too much “racial entitlement” was provided by the Voting Rights Act, a challenge against parts of which is expected before the Supreme Court this year.
“I don’t obviously know what Justice Scalia was thinking,” said Barrett, who used to clerk for the late justice. “Any characterization of the [Voting Rights Act] ... is simply really not something I can opine on.”
The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, outlawed many of the discriminatory voting practices used in the Jim Crow South.
On abortion, Barrett continued to stonewall on how she would deal with any potential challenges to Roe v. Wade, only saying she hasn’t given any promises to Trump or anyone else on the matter.
“No one has elicited from me any commitment,” she said.
Trump, though, has repeatedly promised to only appoint justices willing to overturn Roe, which legalized abortion on a federal level. Barrett has also voiced strong anti-abortion views in her private life.
And despite Barrett’s claims of neutrality, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) kicked off Wednesday’s hearing by praising her as an “unashamedly pro-life woman.”
The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take a preliminary vote on Barrett’s nomination Thursday, even though there’s outstanding testimony from her character witnesses.
Republicans want to jump through that procedural hoop before the committee process is over so that Barrett’s nomination can be confirmed in a final floor vote before Election Day.
If everything goes according to the GOP plan, Barrett’s floor vote will take place on Oct. 26, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says his party can confirm her without any Democratic support.