The Senate voted 52-48 on Monday to confirm Amy Coney Barrett in the United States Supreme Court, giving the court a conservative 6-3 majority that could determine the future of the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights.
All Democrats in the House voted against Barrett’s confirmation, as did Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who agreed with Democratic objections to confirming justice so close to the Nov. 3 election.
President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate pushed for a swift confirmation of Barrett, and it came just 38 days after the death of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who for 27 years anchored the liberal wing of the court. Trump had said he wanted his replacement for Ginsburg to avoid a deadlocked court in case the outcome of the presidential election depended on a ruling, as was the case in 2000.
A White House swearing-in ceremony is planned for Barrett for Monday night with Judge Clarence Thomas set to administer the oath of office.
The highly partisan vote on confirmation reflects divisions in the country ahead of the elections and on some of the issues that will come up in the high court in the near future. Those issues include the validity of the Affordable Care Act and the status of the Roe v. Wade of 1973 that legalized abortion rights across the country, as well as civil and electoral rights.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments about the ACA, the law known as Obamacare, a week after the election. The Trump administration is urging the court to declare the law invalid, including its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
Meanwhile, the Mississippi attorney general has filed for the court to take over her state’s abortion ban after 15 weeks in a case that could drastically limit Roe and allow states for the first time to ban the procedure before it a fetus is viable.
Trump has said that he wants the judges he has selected for the court, now there are three, to invalidate Obamacare and annul Roe v. Wade.
The court is already addressing pre-election skirmishes over the rules for casting and counting votes in the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
Just last week, the court stalled 4-4 on how many days Pennsylvania could wait after the Eay Election for mail-in ballots to arrive, leaving in effect a three-day extension for the receipt of absentee ballots in the fundamental state. Barrett could provide the fifth vote to overturn any state court ruling that expands voting or favors Democrats.
The court is also scheduled to hear arguments on Nov.30 about Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census, a case that could determine the allocation of federal seats and dollars.
Barrett, 48, has served on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals since 2017 and taught at Notre Dame Law School. In three days of testimony during his confirmation hearings, Barrett emphasized that he would be independent, while affirming that he had no other agenda than to follow the Constitution and the law. She deflected questions about how she might speak out on issues like abortion, despite having the clearest anti-abortion record of any nominee in decades.
Barrett’s nomination so close to the election and swift confirmation process drew an angry response from Democrats, who pointed to the refusal of Senate Republicans to even give President Barack Obama’s candidate Merrick Garland an audience to fill out a vacancy that arose in February 2016 because it was an election year.
While the number of justices has been set at nine since 1869, that experience and Barrett’s nomination have sparked a campaign by Democratic activists to expand the court in retaliation, though that idea has not been embraced by Biden or the Senate Democratic leader. , Chuck Schumer.
Biden has said he will appoint a commission to consider court reform, while Schumer has said that everything would be on the table next year if Democrats retake the Senate.
Republicans have long viewed court battles as a key motivator in converting their base, and Republican senators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are pinning their reelection hopes largely on their successful efforts to shift the courts to the right. .
They won’t have to wait long to see if their efforts pay off at the polls.
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