There is currently a lot of discussion about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the currently empty seat in the Supreme Court, and President Trump’s nomination for who should fill this empty seat. So, let’s break down the debate about filling the seat and try to understand just who Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is.
President Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court. For Barrett to officially take the seat, she has to be approved by the Senate. Currently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing everything in his power to see to it that a vote is taken to approve Barrett for the Supreme Court. The presidential election is six weeks away, at which point it is possible that Trump could be voted out of office and the duty of appointing a new Supreme Court nominee would fall on his successor.
Additionally, when President Obama was in a similar position after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, he was told that he could not appoint anyone to the Supreme Court – by the same man who is pushing for Trump’s nomination. Mitch McConnell was the Senate Majority Leader then as well and said of Obama’s nomination, “the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president — to be elected later that year.” The Senate refused to even give Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing. Furthermore, in an election year, “no Supreme Court justice in history has ever been confirmed later than July.” So if Obama’s nomination came too close to the election, why does McConnell not take the same stance now?
These circumstances raise questions about McConnell’s intentions, and many speculate that this seems like a partisan attempt at a power grab to pack the Supreme Court with more conservative judges – despite the Supreme Court being, at least in theory, a nonpartisan institution.
The opposition to Trump’s Supreme Court nomination does not stop there; many people have a problem with the idea of Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite among religious and social conservatives, as a justice on the Supreme Court. So, who is she?
Amy Coney Barrett has worked as a lawyer, law clerk, professor, and judge on a federal circuit court. Throughout her career, she has written her opinions, stated her beliefs, and voted in ways that have indicated some cause for concern about how she might proceed if appointed to the Supreme Court.
The main point of contention that some citizens and other politicians have with Barrett is the way that her religious beliefs interact with her political beliefs and decision making. When Barrett was nominated for an appeals court position in 2017, Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of Barrett, “dogma and law are two different things. And whatever a religion is, I think it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, [Professor Amy Coney Barrett], when we read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
Barrett describes herself as a devout Catholic, and she is affiliated with a religious group called People of Praise, a group which advocates for “gender roles where husbands have authority over their wives.” Additionally, Lambda Legal Defense, a LGBTQ civil rights organization, has pointed out that Barrett has co-signed an open letter that espouses such viewpoints as marriage being defined as the “indissoluble commitment between a man and a woman” and she has also given a speech for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that opposes LGBTQ rights.
Barrett is staunchly Pro-Life and cites the Catholic Church’s stance when explaining, in her opinion, that life begins at conception and that, “the Catholic Church’s views on prohibiting abortion are “absolute” because they “take away innocent life.”” Barrett has been outspoken about her opposition to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that ensures a woman’s right to an abortion, and considering President Trump’s assertion that whoever he appointed to the Supreme Court would be Pro-Life and in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, it seems likely that this will be a hill that Barrett dies on. Already Barrett has “ruled against abortion rights in the two abortion cases that she has heard on the bench.”
Additionally, Barrett has stated her belief that Catholic judges should be able to recuse themselves from death penalty cases due to their religious beliefs about the death penalty. All of these examples build on the apprehension that many politicians and citizens have that Barrett cannot operate as a judge separate from her extreme religious beliefs. Furthermore, her religious beliefs are predicated on a lack of civil rights for marginalized groups, namely women and the LGBTQ+ community. Barrett has every right to her religious beliefs, but as a judge she has an obligation to remove her religious beliefs from her judicial decisions. Still, the fight to get her appointment voted on in the Senate is being pushed harder than ever. We must all watch closely as history is made in the next 2 months in regards to Amy Coney Barrett.