BARRET GRILLED ON HER VIEWS ON OBAMACARE, ABORTION, GUN OWNERSHIP

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said on Tuesday at her US Senate confirmation hearing she is not hostile to the Obamacare law, as Democrats have suggested, and declined to specify whether she believes landmark rulings legalising abortion and gay marriage were properly decided.

Barrett declined to say if she would step aside from any election-related cases that may reach the court. Trump had said he expects the Supreme Court to decide the election’s outcome. Barrett said no one at the White House sought a commitment from her on how she would rule on that or any issue, saying it would be “a gross violation of judicial independence for me to make any such commitment”.

She declined to say whether she would consider stepping aside, as Democrats have requested, from an Obamacare case due to be argued at the court a week after Election Day in which Trump and Republican-led states are seeking to invalidate the law. Barrett noted that the new case centres upon a different legal issue than two previous Supreme Court rulings that upheld Obamacare, which she had criticised.

Barrett said the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May had a “very personal” effect on her family and she and her children wept over his death. She was defending an opinion she wrote arguing that a person who’s convicted of a non-violent felony should not automatically be disqualified from owning a gun. Barrett, who has two Black adopted children, said the Floyd death was “very personal” for her, and that she and her children wept after watching it.

Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority, making Barrett’s confirmation a virtual certainty. If confirmed, Barrett, 48, would give conservatives a 6-3 Supreme Court majority. She is Trump’s third Supreme Court appointment.

Abortion rights advocates have expressed concern that Barrett would vote to overturn the 1973 ruling called Roe v. Wade that legalised abortion nationwide.

Asked about that ruling, Barrett said she would consider the various factors usually applied when justices weigh whether to overturn a precedent.