Trump chooses ’eminently qualified’ Barrett to Supreme Court

Justice Amy Coney Barrett applauds as President Donald Trump announces Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee in the Rose Garden of the White House on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo / Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Saturday, culminating a dramatic reshuffle of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation and that he hopes will provide the necessary impetus to his reelection effort.

Barrett, a former secretary to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said she was “truly honored” by the nomination and quickly aligned herself with Scalia’s conservative approach to the law, saying that his “judicial philosophy is mine as well.”

Barrett, 48, was joined at the Rose Garden by her husband and seven children. If confirmed by the Senate, it would fill the seat left by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It would be the sharpest ideological turn since Clarence Thomas replaced Judge Thurgood Marshall nearly three decades ago.

She would be the sixth magistrate of the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third in Trump’s first term in office.

Trump praised Barrett as “a woman of remarkable intellect and character,” and said he had studied her record closely before choosing.

Republican senators are lining up for Barrett’s quick confirmation ahead of the Nov. 3 election, as his goal is to secure conservative advances in the federal judiciary before a possible transition of power. Trump, meanwhile, hopes the nomination will galvanize his supporters as he seeks to defend himself from Democrat Joe Biden.

For Trump, whose 2016 victory depended in large part on reluctant white evangelical support for a promise to fill Scalia’s seat with a Conservative, the latest nomination somehow completes the circle of his first term. Even before Ginsburg’s death, Trump was running for having confirmed more than 200 federal judges, fulfilling a generational target of conservative legal activists.

Trump joked that the upcoming confirmation process “should be easy” and “extremely uncontroversial,” though it’s likely to be anything but. No court candidate has been considered this close to a presidential election before, with early voting already underway. He encouraged lawmakers to accept his nomination quickly and called on Democrats to “refrain from personal and partisan attacks.”

In 2016, Republicans blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill the election year vacancy, saying voters should have a say in the lifetime appointment. Senate Republicans say they will move forward this time, arguing that circumstances are different now that the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will vote “in the coming weeks” on Barrett’s confirmation. Barrett is expected to make his first appearance Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where he will meet with McConnell; Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Chair of the Judiciary Committee; and others, according to people familiar with his schedule but not authorized to discuss it. The hearings are scheduled to begin on October 12.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that a vote to confirm Barrett in the superior court would be a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Schumer added that the president was once again putting “the health care of Americans in the crosshairs,” even as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Biden also took that route of criticism, framing Trump’s election as another move in the Republicans’ effort to scrap the 2010 healthcare law passed by his former boss, President Barack Obama.

The court is expected to take a case against him this fall.

The Rose Garden scenery, with large American flags hanging between the colonnades, seemed to be modeled after the decor of the White House when President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg in 1993.

Barrett, acknowledging that the flags were still being lowered in recognition of Ginsburg’s death, said he would be “aware of who came before me.” Although they have differing judicial philosophies, Barrett praised Ginsburg as a pioneer for women and for her friendship with Scalia, saying, “She has earned the admiration of women across the country and, indeed, around the world.”

Within hours of Ginsburg’s death, Trump made it clear that he would nominate a woman for the job. Barrett was the first favorite and the only one to meet with Trump.

Barrett has been a judge since 2017, when Trump nominated her to the Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. But as a longtime University of Notre Dame law professor, she had already established herself as a trusted conservative in the mold of Scalia, for whom she worked in the late 1990s.

She would be the only judge in the current court who did not receive her law degree from an Ivy League school. The eight current judges all attended Harvard or Yale.

Trump knew the staunch conservative in large part after the bitter 2017 appeals court confirmation included allegations that Democrats were attacking her Catholic faith. The president also interviewed her in 2018 for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump and his political allies are eager for another fight over Barrett’s faith, seeing it as a political windfall that would backfire on Democrats. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are seen as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Biden, also a Catholic, is trying to win back.

While Democrats appear powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, they seek to use the process to weaken Trump’s chances of reelection.

Barrett’s nomination could turn into a reckoning on abortion, an issue that has bitterly divided many Americans for nearly half a century. The idea of ​​revoking or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, has encouraged activists from both parties for decades. Now, with the seemingly decisive shift in the ideological makeup of the court, Democrats are hoping their voters will come out in droves because of their frustration with Barrett’s election.

“Judge Ginsburg must be circling in her grave in the sky, to see that the person they chose seems determined to undo all the things that Ginsburg did,” Schumer said.

Trump has also increasingly embraced the high court, in which he will have played a big part in the makeover, as an insurance policy in a closed election.

“We don’t have to do it before, but I think this will be done before the election,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. “I think it will send a great signal to a lot of people.”

Increases in vote-by-mail, absentee and early voting triggered by the coronavirus pandemic have already sparked a flurry of election litigation, and both Trump and Biden have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once the vote count begins. Trump has been outspoken about linking his push to appoint a third judge to the court to a potentially lengthy court fight to determine who will be sworn in on January 20, 2021.

“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said Wednesday of the election. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine judges.”

Democratic senators are not expected to vote to confirm Barrett before the election, although some supported her in 2017.
Two Democrats still in the Senate who voted to confirm Barrett in 2017, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, now say they are too close to the election to consider his nomination.

Meanwhile, outside conservative groups plan to spend more than $ 25 million to support Trump and his nominee. Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth, and the Catholic Vote group to help confirm Barrett. The Republican National Committee has launched a $ 10 million digital campaign of its own, along with Trump’s reelection campaign.

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