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WASHINGTON: Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated on Saturday (September 26) to the US Supreme Court, is a favorite of conservatives for her religious views, but naysayers warn her confirmation would move the highest country cut firmly to the right.
A practicing Catholic and mother of seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and a young son with Down syndrome, Barrett is personally opposed to abortion, one of the key issues that dominates the cultural divide in the United States.
As a federal appeals court judge since 2017, she has taken positions that support gun and anti-migrant rights, women seeking abortions, and former President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform that Republicans have been trying to dismantle for years. .
At just 48 years old, his lifetime appointment to the court would guarantee a conservative presence on the panel for decades, but his track record, the antithesis of the justice he would replace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is a new flash point in a country already polarized.
President Donald Trump announced Barrett’s nomination in the White House and predicted a “very quick” confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate.
READ: Trump announces ‘brilliant’ Conservative Justice Barrett as Supreme Court pick
“THE DOGMA LIVES STRONG IN YOU”
After a childhood in New Orleans in the conservative South, Barrett became one of the top students at Notre Dame Law School in Indiana, where she later went on to teach for 15 years.
Early in her legal career, she worked as a secretary to the renowned Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and embraced his “originalist” philosophy of understanding the Constitution as it was intended to be read at the time of writing, as opposed to the more progressive. interpretation.
Praised for her finely honed legal arguments, the college professor, however, has limited experience of presiding over a courtroom, having only taken office in 2017, after being appointed by Trump as a federal appeals court judge.
At the time, his Senate confirmation process was a stormy affair, with veteran Democrat Dianne Feinstein telling him: “Dogma lives loudly inside of you.”
That statement was used by Barrett’s supporters to accuse Feinstein herself of bigotry, and only served to further her position among the religious right.
Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was told by Senator Dianne Feinstein. ‘Dogma lives strong in you’ AFP / Julian VELASCO
The conservative Judicial Crisis Network even made mugs with the judge’s image printed alongside Feinstein’s words.
Without losing his composure, Barrett replied that he could make the distinction between his faith and his duties as a judge.
But her critics were unconvinced, often citing the many articles she wrote on court matters while at Notre Dame, pointing to her recent rulings as a judge that they say betray her ideological leanings.
In 2018, he was on the short list presented by President Trump for a position released by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a position that Brett Kavanaugh eventually filled after a fierce confirmation battle.
READ: As Trump names his next Supreme Court nominee, focus shifts to Senate
“GOD’S KINGDOM”
The comments he delivered to Notre Dame students are often used to reprimand Barrett.
Presenting herself as a “different kind of lawyer,” she said that a “legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is the building of the Kingdom of God.”
“Amy Coney Barrett meets Trump’s two litmus tests for federal judges,” Daniel Goldberg, director of the progressive lobby group Alliance for Justice, previously said.
“The will to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to repeal Roe v. Wade,” the landmark legislation that legalized abortion in the United States.
“This nomination tries to take care of 20 million Americans and remove protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Barrett, who has even opposed guaranteeing access to contraception, would be a reproductive freedom nightmare,” Goldberg said .
At the same time, conservatives salute a woman they consider “brilliant” and “impressive,” and fans online even post memes of her dressed as Superman.
