The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Indiana judge in line to be high court pick By Anne Gearan, Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey
President expected to nominate Barrett today to replace Ginsburg; confirmation would boost conservative majority.
President Donald Trump has told people around him that today he plans to nominate federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a nominee who, if confirmed, could ensure a solid conservative majority on the high court for years to come, according to people familiar with the matter.
Democrats have little chance to block the nominee, but a bitter Senate battle looms in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, the results of which Trump has said may end up before the high court.
Barrett’s confirmation would replace a liberal icon with a deeply conservative jurist whose views suggest she might vote to further limit abortion rights, an issue that animates conservative Republicans and evangelical voters.
Barrett, 48, could hold the lifetime seat for decades. She would join two other relatively young, conservative jurists chosen for the high court by Trump. Trump’s first two appointments, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are in their 50s. The trio would represent one-third of the body and form a new 6-3 conservative majority.
The people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced, cautioned that Trump could always change his mind ahead of the announcement, but he is telling others that Barrett is his pick and she is the only candidate he is known to have met with
about the vacancy. Administration officials and campaign advisers were preparing for a Barrett announcement, and some remarks for the president disclosing her as his choice have already been written, according to these people.
The White House declined to comment.
Asked by reporters traveling with him later Friday whether he had decided on a nominee Trump said: “In my own mind, yes.”
Trump has urged the Senate to act swiftly in hopes of confirming his nominee before Election Day, an extraordinarily fast timeline and a mark of how Trump plans to use the prospect of an ironclad conservative majority as an election issue.
Barrett is a favorite of religious conservatives and is already battle-tested after going through a ferocious confirmation fight in 2017 for her seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She was confirmed on a 55-to-43 vote.
Republicans also hope that for moderates such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, her gender will make her a more palatable replacement for Ginsburg, a feminist icon who devoted her legal career to gender equality. Trump said he would only consider women to fill the seat, and quickly narrowed the list to Barrett and a handful of others.
Trump considered Barrett in 2018 to replace retired justice Anthony Kennedy, but reportedly said he was saving her for Ginsburg’s slot, whenever it might come. This time, she was the favorite among several Trump advisers, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Vice President Mike Pence.
Barrett is a devout Catholic who faced questions about the role of her religion in her legal philosophy during her appeals court confirmation hearing. She said then that as an appellate judge she would “follow all Supreme Court precedent without fail” and would regard decisions such as Roe v. Wade as binding precedent. “I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law,” she added.
But Democrats pointed to comments she had made years before about a legal career being a means to an end, “and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”
She had also written that judges shouldn’t be held to upholding Supreme Court precedents.
Other candidates for the vacancy included 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, Judge Allison Jones Rushing of the 4th Circuit and deputy White House counsel Kate Todd.
Trump’s reelection rallies have featured chants of “Fill That Seat,” an echo of his 2016 campaign slogan
“Build That Wall,” and his campaign offered T-shirts with the Supreme Courtthemed slogan to donors days after Ginsburg’s death.
Democrats have complained about the fairness of making such a replacement when voting in the presidential election already has begun. They call Republicans hypocrites for refusing to hold a confirmation vote in 2016, when President Barack Obama sought to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia upon his death in that election year.
Democrats are hoping to use the pick to mobilize liberal and swing voters by focusing on the implications of a more conservative court for issues such as health care. The high court is set to hear oral arguments on the latest bid to strike down the Affordable Care Act — a suit brought by 18 Republican states that is backed by the Trump administration — on Nov. 10, one week after the election. Republicans have offered no plan for replacing the law, which extended health insurance to some 20 million Americans.
They also hope to convince voters that the pick is being rushed and that whoever wins the presidential election should pick Ginsburg’s replacement. A majority of Americans oppose efforts by Trump and the Republican-led Senate to fill the vacancy before the election, with most supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden saying the issue has raised the stakes of the election, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday. The poll, conducted Monday to Thursday, finds 38% of Americans say the replacement for Justice Ginsburg, who died last week, should be nominated by Trump and confirmed by the current Senate, while 57% say it should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year.
Republicans plan to move to confirm Trump’s pick as quickly as possible.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., began mobilizing his ranks last week to confirm whomever Trump chose. Only two GOP senators — Collins and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — have said they oppose voting on Trump’s pick before Nov. 3, while GOP support has only grown for Trump’s public demand for Senate
Republicans to hold a vote by then.
Democrats have argued that the Senate has never confirmed a nominee to the Supreme Court between July and Election Day in a presidential year, but they currently lack the votes to stop hearings and a vote in the Republican-led Senate.
Trump appeared to have secured the votes needed to confirm his nominee days before he even named a candidate, and the White House predicts Republicans will stick together.