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So there she is. The woman whose potential nomination for the highest judicial office in the United States is almost more explosive than the presidential election on November 3. Amy Coney Barrett, 48, red suit, no notes in front of you, but the entire extended family behind you: seven children, six brothers.
For hours yesterday, the 22-member judicial committee beat up Ginsburg’s potential successor. At least the Democratic senators among them. As with the inauguration the day before, Republicans were largely content to highlight Barrett’s motherhood. Otherwise, there were great assists.
Kind questions, non-binding answers
Sen. Lindsey Graham (65), one of Trump’s most important allies in Congress, wanted to know from arch-conservative Barrett if she had a gun herself, and could she still make gun possession judgments? Or if she, who is known to belong to a Catholic sect (People of Praise), would listen to both sides when it comes to verdicts on abortions? Barrett dutifully replied, “I don’t have an agenda.” He stressed several times that its basis is always the constitution: “Its meaning has not changed.”
And that is exactly the crux of the matter. As with biblical texts, the context in which the constitution is interpreted is very important. For Barrett, Democrats have no doubt that it will be practically 1787, the year it was written. With the comparatively young lawyer, a dream would come true for Trump and his Republicans: With six of the nine seats, a conservative majority would rule the Supreme Court for a long time.
Consequently, they took Trump’s favorite in a pincer. But the conservative lawyer did not answer key questions such as the right to abortion or same-sex marriages. Despite constant investigations, he refused to reveal his position on previous court decisions on these issues.
There is not much that gets in the way of the office.
If she expressed an opinion on a precedent, this could give the parties an indication of what decision she would be willing to make in a specific case, Barrett argued in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specifically, he declined to comment on two preceding decisions (“Right to abortion” and “Same-sex marriages”) of the Supreme Court that some conservatives in the United States want to overturn. Barrett only emphasized that he found discrimination “abhorrent”: “I would never discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.”
The hearing will last until Thursday. But really only the United States Senate stands between Barrett and the highest judicial office, and that is firmly in Republican hands. And: if you actually swear in before the presidential elections, you could already play a significant role in the expected electoral chaos. When questioned, Barrett also failed to respond to the question of whether a US president could postpone an election from her point of view, a scenario that Trump repeatedly flirted with.
