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Democrats have voiced outrage at the rush and accused Republicans of rank hypocrisy given their treatment of Judge Garland, but they have little option to delay the nomination, much less stop it. Instead, they have focused on making Republicans pay at the polls and have debated ways to counter Trump’s influence on the field if they win the election.
Trump met with Judge Barrett at the White House on Monday and Tuesday and was said to have liked him personally. While he said he had a shortlist of five finalists, he never interviewed anyone else for the position and bypassed Judge Barbara Lagoa of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, who appealed to campaign advisers. particularly due to his Cuban-American identity. heritage and roots in Florida, a critical state on the battlefield in the presidential race.
Despite Trump’s penchant for drama and intrigue that surrounded his first two elections for Supreme Court seats, the selection process since Justice Ginsburg died last Friday has been fairly low-key and surprisingly predictable. The president has long signaled that he hoped to put Judge Barrett on the court and has been quoted as telling insiders in 2018 that he was “saving her for Ginsburg.”
If confirmed, Justice Barrett would become the 115th judge in the nation’s history and the fifth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. At 48, she would be the youngest member of the current court and the sixth Catholic. And she would become Trump’s third court appointee, more than any other president has installed in a first term since Richard M. Nixon served four, joining Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Judge Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law School and later joined the school. She worked as a secretary to Justice Scalia and shares his constitutional views. She is described as a textualist who interprets the law based on her simple words rather than seeking to understand the legislative purpose and an originalist who applies the Constitution as understood by those who drafted and ratified it.
She has been a judge for just three years, appointed by Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017. Her confirmation hearing set off fireworks as Democratic senators questioned her public statements and Catholicism. That made her an instant celebrity among religious conservatives, who viewed her as a victim of prejudice on the basis of her faith.
Judge Barrett and her husband, Jesse Barrett, a former federal prosecutor, are reportedly members of a small and relatively obscure Christian group called the People of Praise. The group grew out of the Catholic charismatic renewal movement that began in the late 1960s and embraced Pentecostal practices such as speaking in tongues, belief in prophecy, and divine healing. The couple have seven children, all under the age of 20, including two adopted from Haiti and a young son with Down syndrome.
