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US President Donald Trump is reportedly nominating Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of social conservatives, to be the new Supreme Court justice.
The president’s decision, to be revealed at the White House on Saturday, has been confirmed to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, and other US media.
He would replace liberal judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last Friday.
The nomination will trigger a bitter fight in the Senate for his confirmation as the November White House elections loom.
CBS, citing multiple sources involved or familiar with the selection process, reported that the president had been decided by Judge Barrett.
- Ginsburg becomes the first American woman to lie in the state
If confirmed, conservative judges will have a 6-3 majority in America’s highest court for the foreseeable future.
Amy Coney Barrett, 48, would be the third magistrate appointed by this Republican president to the bench, after Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
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Its nine magistrates serve life appointments, and their rulings can shape public policy on everything from gun and voting rights to abortion and campaign finance long after the presidents who appoint them leave office.
In recent years, the court has expanded gay marriage to all 50 states, allowed Trump’s travel ban to be put in place, and delayed a U.S. plan to cut carbon emissions while appeals progress.
Tough position for Democrats
Amy Coney Barrett has been on Donald Trump’s shortlist for Supreme Court vacancies for some time, but she was said to be the most appropriate replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
As of last week, that was no longer a hypothetical scenario.
Even before Trump reportedly chose Judge Barrett as his choice, conservatives were backing the nominee, whoever he was. And if they stick together, as all but two appear to be doing, their confirmation appears to be assured, either before the November election or in a subsequent “lame duck” Senate session.
The election of Judge Barrett puts the Democrats in a difficult position. They have to find a way to undermine support for the nominee without appearing to attack her Catholic faith or personal background, measures that could put some voters at risk in November. They will seek to delay the proceedings as best they can, while focusing on issues such as health care and abortion, which could be at the center of future legal battles with a Judge Barrett in a court dominated by conservatives.
So they have to wait for Judge Barrett, or the Republicans, to make some kind of critical mistake. It is a difficult task, but at the moment it is the only play they have.
Who is Amy Coney Barrett?
She is described as a devout Catholic who, according to a 2013 magazine article, said that “life begins at conception.” This makes her a favorite among religious conservatives eager to overturn the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion across the country.
He also voted in favor of President Trump’s hardline immigration policies and voiced opinions in favor of expansive gun rights.
Nominated by President Trump to the Chicago-based Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, she was confirmed by the Senate in a 55-43 vote in October 2017 after a difficult process. She was one of the names the president considered to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2017.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame School of Law in Indiana, she worked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. She served as a legal scholar at Notre Dame for about 15 years.
Born in New Orleans, she is married to a former federal prosecutor in Indiana and together they have seven children.
Two of them were adopted from Haiti and their youngest biological son has Down syndrome.
Battle for the Supreme Court
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Will Judge Barrett be confirmed?
The White House has begun contacting the Republican Senate offices to schedule meetings with the nominee next week, two sources familiar with the planning told CBS.
Courtesy calls are expected to begin Wednesday. The candidate will then be questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which sits on 22 Republicans and Democrats.
Hearings typically last three to five days. Subsequently, the committee members will vote whether to send the nomination to the full Senate. If they do, all 100 senators will vote to confirm or reject it.
Republicans have a slim majority of 53 senators in the chamber, but they already have the 51 votes they need for Judge Barrett to be confirmed.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to hold a confirmation vote before the November 3 White House election.
Barring one surprise, Democrats appear to have few procedural options to prevent her from sliding down the Senate to the Supreme Court bench.
At Judge Barrett’s 2017 confirmation hearing for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, she was asked if her religious faith could affect her jurisprudence.
Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, told the nominee during that hearing: “Dogma lives strongly within you.”
Judge Barrett insisted that his professional and religious beliefs be kept separate. It’s unclear if the Democrats will make their religion a problem this time.
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Why is the nomination controversial?
Since Ginsburg’s death, Republican senators have been accused of hypocrisy for going ahead with a Supreme Court nomination during an election year.
In 2016, McConnell refused to hold hearings for Democratic President Barack Obama’s candidate for court, Merrick Garland.
The nomination, which came 237 days before the election, was successfully blocked because Republicans occupied the Senate and argued that the decision should be made outside of an election year.
39 days before the 2020 election, Democrats now say Republicans should defend their previous position and let the voters decide.
A Reuters / Ipsos opinion poll conducted after Ginsburg’s death found that 62% of American adults thought the vacancy should be filled by the winner of the presidential election, while 23% disagreed and the rest said they were not sure.
