Amy Coney Barrett closed her opening remarks by pledging “to faithfully and impartially discharge my duties to the American people” as a Supreme Court justice.
She thanked the people that reached out with messages of support after she was nominated by President Trump.
Here’s how she closed her remarks:
Senate Democrats were united in driving home one message in the opening day of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing that her confirmation could threaten the future of the Affordable Care Act.
In a series of opening statements Monday, Democrats stuck to a script that was crafted by members of leadership and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden weeks ago, a message that Democrats hope will win them political support at the polls even if it cannot keep Barrett off the bench.
Every single Democrat on the committee brought with them a photograph and a story of at least one constituent for whom the ACA had made a difference.
“Children like Myka,” Harris said—speaking about an 11-year-old Southern California girl who Harris showed in a photo next to her.
Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, talked about constituents “Merritt and Michelle.”
“They know what a future without the ACA looks like. It looks like 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions — from cancer survivors to people with disabilities — being charged more or denied coverage completely. It looks like 20 million people losing their access to potentially life-saving care in the middle of a pandemic that has killed over 214,000 Americans,” Booker said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said people in his state are afraid of what Barrett’s confirmation could mean for health care.
“They’re scared, Judge Barrett. They’re scared that your confirmation would rip from them the very healthcare protections that millions of Americans have fought to maintain, and which Congress has repeatedly rejected eliminating,” Leahy said.
An aide to the committee told CNN that after multiple member-level discussions, members of the committee agreed that not only health care, but the personal stories of people across the country would be the most effective strategy for day one.
In her opening statement at her confirmation hearing, Judge Amy Coney Barrett said the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s approach to law shaped her and that policy choices should be left to the American people’s representatives in her view.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained how this translate for issues like gay marriage and abortion. Here’s what he said:
He added: “But people should understand, that’s what it means in the real world. It is not just boilerplate. It has real political content.”
In her remarks to the House Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett described the process she uses when considering arguments and writing opinions. Barrett said she plans to use the same standard if confirmed to the highest court.
Here’s what she told lawmakers:
Despite the sacrifices that would come to her family, Barrett said she was “deeply honored” by President Trump’s nomination, and accepted because she believes “deeply in the rule of law and the place of the Supreme Court in our nation.”
She added that she believes Americans of “all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written.”
“And I believe I can serve my country by playing that role,” Barrett said.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett praised the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for opening doors, even though the two women are ideological opposites.
“I come before this Committee with humility about the responsibility I have been asked to undertake, and with appreciation for those who came before me,” Barrett told lawmakers.
“When I was 21 years old and just beginning my career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat in this seat,” Barrett continued.
The Supreme Court nominee said it would be “the honor of a lifetime” to serve on the highest court, and she highlighted the “new perspectives” she could bring to the bench, including being the the first mother of school-age children to serve on the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s opening statement focused on how her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, influenced her career and the opportunity to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
Barrett said Scalia taught her “more than just law” and he was “devoted to his family, resolute in his beliefs, and fearless of criticism.”
Throughout her legal career, Barrett said she resolved to maintain the same perspective as Scalia.
“There is a tendency in our profession to treat the practice of law as all-consuming, while losing sight of everything else. But that makes for a shallow and unfulfilling life,” Barrett said.
Barrett, the mother of seven children, also used her remarks to describe her connection and dedication to her family.
“I am used to being in a group of nine—my family. Nothing is more important to me, and I am so proud to have them behind me,” she said.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, was just sworn in at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing.
She’s now delivering her opening statement before the committee.
Senators on the Judiciary Committee this morning delivered their opening statements to kick off the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
Barrett will soon give her own opening remarks. If you’re just reading in now, here are the key moments from the hearing:
Sen. Kamala Harris slammed Senate GOP members for pushing through the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act through the Supreme Court.
Harris emphasized that President Trump and Republican members of Congress were unable to repeal the law, despite their many efforts, and doing so through the Supreme Court is going against what the American people want.
“That’s why President Trump promised to only nominate judges who will get rid of the Affordable Care Act,” Harris said.
Harris added that the rush from Republicans to push through Barrett before the election is “to ensure they can strip away the protections” of the ACA when the Supreme Court takes up the case on Nov. 10.
Read Harris’ full prepared opening statement here.
Watch here:
Sen. Kamala Harris said the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett should have been postponed because of coronavirus concerns, saying the committee has not taken enough precautions to keep people safe.
She said not postponing the confirmation hearing puts people at risk and pauses talks about additional coronavirus relief funding.
“This hearing should have been postponed,” Harris said. “The decision to hold this hearing now is reckless and places facilities workers, janitorial staff and congressional aides and Capitol Police at risk. Not to mention while tens of millions of Americans are struggling to pay their bills, the Senate should be prioritizing coronavirus relief and providing financial support to those families,” she said.
Harris said continuing with the hearing shows that “Republicans have made it crystal clear that rushing a Supreme Court nomination is more important than helping and supporting the American people who are suffering from a deadly pandemic and economic crisis.”
“Their priorities are not the American people’s priorities,” she added.
Watch:
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded to President Trump’s tweet about skipping the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett and moving straight to a vote.
“With all due respect to the President, the committee is following the traditions of the committee,” Graham told reporters, which allows for opening statements from members and questioning of the nominee.
Graham said, “We will proceed forward in the way that we have in the past.”
Trump on Twitter this morning said: “The Republicans are giving the Democrats a great deal of time, which is not mandated, to make their self serving statements relative to our great new future Supreme Court Justice. Personally, I would pull back, approve, and go for STIMULUS for the people!!!”
When asked by CNN’s Manu Raju if he thinks members should be tested for Covid-19, Graham replied, “I don’t know what it’s like at CNN, but you can’t demand that all of your colleagues be tested before you go to work if there is no reason.”
The senator said that he was tested “a week ago Friday” and that he feels fine.
In perhaps the most heated statements so far in today’s hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, attacked Democrats for what he perceived to be veiled attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism — something he called a “pattern and practice of religious bigotry.”
But in reality, today it has been Republicans, not Democrats who have referred to her religion. As for Barrett, she plans to nod to it in her opening statement where she will say that she believes in the power of prayer.
Hawley specifically pointed to Barrett’s confirmation hearing from 2017 when top-ranked Democratic member Sen. Dianne Feinstein pressed her on her writing about faith and the law. In a tense exchange, the Democratic senator questioned whether the judicial nominee could separate her Catholic views from her legal opinions.
“The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein pointedly said. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this county.”
The exchange invigorated and emboldened conservatives who said she had been a victim of anti-Catholic bias.
Today Hawley said, “When you tell somebody that they’re too Catholic to be on the bench, when you tell them they’re going to be a Catholic judge, not an American judge, that’s bigotry,” he said.
“The pattern and practice of bigotry from members of this committee must stop,” he said, adding, “And I would expect that it be renounced.”
Other Republicans, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ben Sasse, have talked about religion.
But Democrats like Sen. Chris Coons have said that they will concentrate not on religious liberty but on what she has written.
The majority of the Supreme Court now is Catholic.
Watch:
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is back after a short recess, and Sen. Kamala Harris is set to deliver her opening statement soon remotely from her Senate office.
Close allies of the California senator cautioned that viewers tuning in shouldn’t expect those kind of fireworks from the vice presidential candidate.
This time, Harris is playing a much more complex dual role, a Judiciary Committee member valued by her party for her courtroom skills, but also the running mate of a Democratic presidential nominee who has condemned the divisive, angry politics of Washington and is promising to be a president to people all political persuasions.
Instead, advisers say, Harris, along with her fellow Democrats on the committee, will keep the focus on health care and what Barrett’s confirmation could mean for the future of the Affordable Care Act.
Read more here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is in a short minute break. They hearing is expected to resume at 12:20 p.m. ET.
When members return, they will continue with their opening statements. Barrett will then be sworn in by Chair Lindsey Graham, and she will deliver her opening statement to the committee.
So far in the hearing, partisan battle lines have been clearly drawn. In opening speeches, Republican senators praised Barrett’s judicial qualifications in glowing terms and emphasized her capability as a working mom, while Democrats warned that health care protections and the Affordable Care Act are at stake if the confirmation succeeds.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican, described Barrett as “in a category of excellence,” saying that she is “highly respected” and “widely-admired for her integrity.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, used his opening statement in today’s hearing to urge Judge Amy Coney Barrett to sit out any Supreme Court election cases involving President Trump.
Blumenthal told Barrett he is “really deeply concerned” that the Supreme Court is “losing the trust and respect of the American people.”
“The American people follow the Supreme Court’s commands, even when they disagree, because they respect its authority. And now, President Trump and the Republican senators are eroding, indeed destroying, that legitimacy. They’ve stripped the American people of their say in this process, simply to confirm a justice who will strike down in court, legislate from the bench, what they can’t repeal in congress,” he said.
Some context: Democratic senators are pressing Barrett to promise to sit out any Supreme Court election dispute between Trump and former vice president Joe Biden.
Barrett has eluded their requests and made no commitment. Yet with controversies over state ballot practices escalating and the possibility of a replay of the 2000 Bush v. Gore ordeal in the air, the topic is sure to surface at Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings next week.
Trump has pointed to the November 3 election as a reason for seeking swift Senate confirmation of Barrett, a federal appeals court judge who would be his third appointee to the nine-member bench. The Republican incumbent has said he believes the Supreme Court could ultimately decide whether he is the victor over Biden.
Watch:
There’s an incongruity in senators’ declarations of the importance of the Supreme Court when there’s a certain emptiness to the hearings so far.
As Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham said, Republicans have the votes to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Both sides are going through the motions.
Republicans are not going to pin down the President’s nominee, and Democrats have made clear they will refer to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Affordable Care Act yet avoid any strong confrontation with Barrett.
Supreme Court confirmation hearings have long been known for elusive answers, this one could be marked by weak, watered down questions, too.
This hearing also seems to have a disproportionate number of “regular American” references, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is doing now by brining up Laura, a Rhode Island resident with preexisting conditions, who was protected by the Affordable Care Act. Democrats want to personalize this hearing, bring it home to people watching.
It’s unlikely to change the Senate vote, but it is a reminder for the electorate that President Trump is at the Supreme Court trying to kill the entire ACA.
Keying off of Sen. Ben Sasse about the importance of having another “originalist” on the Supreme Court, we know where originalists will go in practical terms, for better or for worse.
We have the record of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Judge Amy Coney Barrett once served as a law clerk.
His originalist and textualist views led him to dissent when the majority declared a right to same-sex marriage, to vote consistently against abortion rights, and to vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act.
An originalist believes the Constitution should be interpreted the way its framers in the 18th century understood it. Scalia believed the Constitution brought gun rights under the Second Amendment. He broadly dissented on gay rights and reproductive rights, not just against Obergefell and same-sex marriage.
Sen. Mike Lee, a former clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, had spent much of his time talking in today’s hearing about how a judge should not stray into policy decisions, but instead, limit herself or himself to issues such as the dormant commerce clause.
Lee spoke at the hearing in-person today, despite testing positive for Covid-19 11 days ago.
When Lee finished, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham spoke up and cracked a joke.
“Definitely some good news,” he said. “ Senator Lee’s enthusiasm for the dormant commerce clause convinces me you have made a full recovery.” He then turned to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse for his 10 minutes.
Whitehouse immediately stepped in calling the hearing an “irresponsible botch” and he said that it was a “microcosm of Trump’s dangerous ineptitude in dealing with the Covid pandemic.”
Whitehouse said it was Graham’s job to see to the committee’s safety, and yet he doesn’t now “who has been tested, who should be tested , who is a danger, what contact tracing has been done on infected and exposed senators and staff.”
Some context: Lee, a Republican from Utah who tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, released a letter he received on Monday from the Attending Physician of the United States Congress Dr. Brian Monahan saying that he no longer had to isolate. Lee was seen working in the committee room without a mask.
Watch:
Sen. Amy Klobuchar stressed the need to protect the Affordable Car Act in her opening statement during today’s hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
She accused Republicans of rushing to confirm Barrett — who once tried to puncture arguments favoring Obamacare — to the bench not only before the court takes up a new case about the Affordable Care Act, but also during the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
Klobuchar said the pandemic is “personal” to the families foe the more than 210,000 Americans who have died from the virus — and to the millions more who have been diagnosed with Covid-19. She then explained how both her 92-year-old father and her husband were diagnosed with coronavirus during the pandemic.
“He ended up in the hospital for a week on oxygen with severe pneumonia,” she said of her husband.
Klobuchar added that her father contracted the virus in his nursing home, and she wasn’t allowed to visit him inside.
“I stood there outside his window in a mask, and he looked so small and confused,” she said. “I thought it was going to be the last time that I saw him. He miraculously survived.”
Watch:
Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah who tested positive for Covid-19 eleven days ago, is working in the committee room without a mask.
He gave his opening statement during Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing maskless, and described how the Supreme Court nomination process has become “political.”
“We have allowed for the politicization of the one branch of government that is not political,” he said.
Lee said this morning he was cleared by his physician.
He also released a letter he received on Monday from the Attending Physician of the United States Congress Dr. Brian Monahan saying that he no longer had to isolate.
“Based upon current CDC guidelines, you have met criteria to end COVID-19 isolation for those with mild to moderate disease. Specifically, it has been greater than 10 days since symptom onset, you have had no fever in absence of fever reducing medication for at least 24 hours, and your other symptoms have improved,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis, who was also diagnosed with the virus after attending Barrett’s Rose Garden announcement earlier this month, is attending the hearing virtually. He expects to be in person later this week.
When she was a law professor, Judge Amy Coney Barrett tried to puncture arguments favoring Obamacare. Now senators will probe how Barrett, as a Supreme Court justice, would rule on the decade-old health insurance overhaul.
In the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Democrats will particularly emphasize Barrett’s possible role in the fate of the Affordable Care Act that has provided new health coverage to more than 20 million people. They want to tie Barrett to President Donald Trump and GOP efforts to invalidate the entire law, something recent polls show goes against public opinion
A CNN poll released earlier this month found that 57% of Americans surveyed now favor Obamacare (up from 50% in 2017), and that 61% do not want the Supreme Court to overturn it.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on November 10 regarding whether the whole law should be tossed out. That could be just weeks after the full Senate has confirmed a new Justice Barrett.
A group of Republican states led by Texas, and backed by the Trump administration, has asked the justices to invalidate the entire law, including provisions that expanded Medicaid to low-income adults, allowed children to remain on their parents’ policies until age 26 and guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes and cancer.
Trump has opposed the law from its inception and derided the Supreme Court for upholding it. He had pressed Congress to throw out Obamacare to no avail. Now his administration is trying to do through litigation what it failed to accomplish legislatively. Trump’s third appointee to the nine-member high court could soon be in a pivotal role toward that effort.
Read more here.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said his constituents are scared that Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation would strip rights from them, for which they’ve long fought.
He continued: “They’re scared that clock will be turned back to the time when women had no right to control their own bodies, and when it was acceptable to discriminate against women in the workplace. They’re scared that a time when we’re facing the perilous impacts of climate change, bedrock environmental protections are going to be destroyed. And they’re scared that your confirmation will result in the rolling back of voting rights, workers’ rights, and the rights of the LGBTQ community to equal treatment.”
Watch:
Sen. Patrick Leahy called out two senators who plan to attend the confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett in person after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, calling it “plainly unsafe.”
Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Thom Tillis were diagnosed with the virus after attending Barrett’s Rose Garden announcement earlier this month, an event that was dubbed a “superspreader” event.
Leahy said it is jeopardizing the health of those in the hearing.
Watch:
Democratic senators are pressing Judge Amy Coney Barrett to promise to sit out any Supreme Court election dispute between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Barrett has eluded their requests and made no commitment. Yet with controversies over state ballot practices escalating and the possibility of a replay of the 2000 Bush v. Gore ordeal in the air, the topic is sure to surface at Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings next week.
Trump has pointed to the Nov. 3 election as a reason for seeking swift Senate confirmation of Barrett, a federal appeals court judge who would be his third appointee to the nine-member bench. The Republican incumbent has said he believes the Supreme Court could ultimately decide whether he is the victor over Biden.
In a recent CNN poll, more than half (56%) of the Americans surveyed said they think Barrett should recuse herself from cases on the presidential election; 34% said the opposite. Opinions divided largely by party: 82% of Democrats; 53% of independents and 32% of Republicans said Barrett should promise to recuse herself from cases about the election.
Supreme Court practice leaves it to individual justices to decide when to recuse themselves from cases. In her recent questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barrett noted that federal ethics law covering lower court judges is not binding on the Supreme Court but said she would look to it, as other justices have.
The law requires judges to disqualify themselves when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Rarely do Supreme Court justices sit out cases and typically only when they have a financial stake or family connection to the dispute.
As Democrats have pounded away at a possible conflict of interest for a Justice Barrett, law professors are divided on the issue.
But Ross Garber, who teaches at Tulane Law School, is of the opposite mind, saying Barrett need not recuse herself because she would already have lifetime tenure and “no stake at all in the outcome of the election.” Garber added, “I’d go so far as to say she has a duty to sit and hear any elections cases that come before her.”
Read the full story here.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death opened up a political battle over the future of the Supreme Court and who would fill her vacant seat as Election Day looms.
The White House and Senate Republicans have been rushing President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process to get her over the finish line before Election Day.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham defended the timeline of Barrett’s nomination in today’s hearing, saying “There’s nothing unconstitutional about this process.”
Here’s a look at how long it has taken to confirm past Supreme Court justices:
Brett Kavanaugh (89 days)
Neil Gorsuch (66 days)
Elena Kagan (87 days)
Sonia Sotomayor (72 days)
Samuel Alito (92 days)
John Roberts (72 days)
Stephen Breyer (77 days)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (50 days)
Clarence Thomas (106 days)
Sen. Kamala Harris arrived at the Hart Senate Office Building on her way to her office, where she will participate remotely in the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett.
She spoke to CNN’s Jasmine Wright as she arrived. Here’s the exchange:
CNN: Talk to us about what today is going to look like. What’s your opening statement?
Harris: It’s going to be about setting, setting the context and establishing the context of this hearing.
CNN: And so, about expanding the court, have you guys decided on when you will announce whether or not you would?
Harris: Joe’s been really clear. And I’m really clear. We are 22 days away from an election and people are voting right now. And that’s the, that’s the focus given that they’re trying to push through and ram through a Supreme Court Justice for a lifetime appointment while almost 7 million people have already voted.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, used her opening statement to call for the protection of the Affordable Care Act and told Judge Amy Coney Barrett she has “very big shoes to fill” if she were confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Feinstein said Democrats will drill in on Barrett’s stance on the ACA and question her about her past writings that criticize Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision to side with liberals to save the health care act in 2012.
“This well could mean that if Judge Barrett is confirmed, Americans stand to lose the benefits the ACA will provide. So I hope you will clarify that in this hearing,” she said.
Feinstein pointed out that “the President has promised to appoint justices who will dismantle the law.” She continued to say that Democrats “will examine the consequences if, and that’s a big if, Republicans succeed in rushing this nomination through the Senate before the next President takes office.”
Some background: The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act a week after the election in a case brought by Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, meaning Barrett could hear the case.
Democrats say the case threatens care for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, a popular protection included in the Affordable Care Act.
Watch:
As the hearing began in the Senate Judiciary Committee for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, members of the committee on both sides of the aisle could be seen wearing masks.
Members of the committee removed their masks to speak. The first speakers during the hearing were committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham and ranking Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Judge Barrett is also wearing a mask and did not remove it as she listened to the senators kick off today’s hearing.
Two Republican members of the committee — Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Thom Tillis — tested positive in recent weeks for Covid-19. Sen. Lee is attending today’s hearing in person.
Sen. Lindsey Graham addressed the controversy around President Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Senate Republicans’ push to confirm the nomination.
Remember: In 2016, when former President Barack Obama nominated judge Merrick Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Sen. Graham was opposed to holding a confirmation hearing.
At the time, he had said:
“I want you to use my words against me,” Graham said at the time. “If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, ‘Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.’”
Sen. Graham anticipated and addressed this record in his opening statement at Barrett’s hearing:
He reiterated that he feels that this is being done “constitutionally” and he respects that the Democratic senators will have objections.
“The bottom line is I think it’s important. This is a lifetime appointment. I would like the world and the country to know more about Judge Barrett. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished and I think you’re a great choice by the President.”
He also acknowledged that the confirmation votes will break out on partisan lines.
“This is probably not about persuading each other unless something really dramatic happens. All Republicans will vote yes, and all Democrats will vote no, and that will be the way the breakout of the vote,” he said.
Watch:
The American Bar Association rates Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s third nominee to the Supreme Court, as “well qualified” for the position, according to a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The first day of Barrett’s conformation hearing kicked off this morning.
Republicans have been critical of the American Bar Association, especially after it deemed some of Trump’s nominees unqualified for the lower courts.
Here is the letter:
Dear Chairman Graham and Ranking Member Feinstein:
The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has completed its evaluation of the professional qualifications of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has been nominated by the President to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As you know, the Standing Committee confines its evaluation to the qualities of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament. A substantial majority of the Standing Committee determined that Judge Barrett is “Well Qualified,” and a minority is of the opinion that she is “Qualified” to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. The majority rating represents the Standing Committee’s official rating.
Yours very truly,
Randall D. Noel
Chair, Standing Committee On the Federal Judiciary
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett is in a “category of excellence” during his opening statements of her confirmation hearing this morning.
He also praised the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, saying that during her confirmation hearing almost every Republican senator voted for her based on her qualifications.
“I just want to remind everybody, there was a time in this country where someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg was seen by almost everybody as qualified for the position of being on the Supreme Court, understanding that she would have a different philosophy than many of the Republicans who voted for her,” Graham said, drawing parallels to Barrett.
As Republicans are expected to push the hearing forward with speed and Democrats look for ways to draw out the process for the lifetime appointment, Graham called for senators to use the hearing as an opportunity to learn more about Barrett.
“The hearing is a chance for Democrats to dig deep into her philosophy, appropriately ask her about the law, how she would be different, what’s on her mind. It gives Republicans a chance to do the same thing,” he said about Barrett.
Watch:
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate judge and Notre Dame law professor, is a proven conservative who has long been atop President Trump’s Supreme Court short list.
Barrett, the mother of seven children and a former law clerk to the late right-wing beacon Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett, now 48, was a finalist for the Supreme Court spot that went to Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Trump announced Sept. 26 he was nominating Barrett to be the new high court justice.
Here is a look at key moments of her career:
Divided reactions to her record: Advocates on the far right have backed her possible nomination because of her writings on faith and the law. Religious conservatives were especially energized for Barrett when, during the 2017 confirmation hearing for her current judgeship, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California suggested to her that the “dogma lives loudly within you.” Barrett supporters believed the nominee was being disparaged for her Catholicism.
For all the reasons that Trump sees Barrett as a potential successor to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democratic senators and liberal advocates have long been poised to oppose her, warning particularly that she could roll back abortion rights and invalidate the Affordable Care Act.
Read more about her life and career here.
Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin shortly and it will look very different from hearings of the past.
Members have the option of appearing and questioning the witness in person or remotely. Committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Barrett will be in-person for the hearing. Sen. Kamala Harris plans to attend virtually from her Senate office.
The hearing is taking place in the Hart Senate Office building in room 216, the site of the last several Supreme Court nomination hearings, but the number of individuals permitted will be dramatically scaled back, according to a GOP Senate aide familiar with the hearing’s planning that spoke to CNN earlier this month.
Barrett’s family will be permitted in the room if they choose to attend and five administration officials from the White House and Justice Department will be permitted. There will be no public seating, which has been the case for hearings on Capitol Hill for months.
Members will be at least 6 feet apart. And every member will have hand sanitizer, paper towels, wipes and trash cans available to them within reach, according to the aide.
Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he plans to attend Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings in person.
He said he has received the sign off from his physician.
Lee, alongside Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, tested positive for coronavirus after they attended Barrett’s Rose Garden announcement at the end of last month.
Even if Democrats are fighting a losing battle to stop Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation, the public attention on the Supreme Court hearings gives them an opportunity to push a health care message that helped them win the House in 2018 — and they hope will help take back the Senate and White House next month.
The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act a week after the election in a case brought by Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, meaning Barrett could hear the case.
Democrats say the case threatens care for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, a popular protection included in the Affordable Care Act.
A CNN poll released earlier this month found that 57% of Americans surveyed now favor Obamacare (up from 50% in 2017), and that 61% do not want the Supreme Court to overturn it.
Barrett, then a University of Notre Dame law professor, wrote in a 2017 law review essay criticizing the way Chief Justice John Roberts saved the Affordable Care Act in 2012.
“Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute. He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power.”
She continued, “Had he treated the payment as the statute did — as a penalty — he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress’s commerce power.”
While Trump has claimed he will protect pre-existing conditions, he has not put forward any plan to do so despite months of pledges that a health care plan is coming any day now.
Watch:
Today is the first day of confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
Here’s what we know about what happens next, and why it matters:
How many votes does it take to confirm a new justice? Republicans ended the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, so it takes only a simple majority. Vice President Mike Pence can break a 50-50 tie, which might happen if three Republicans decide they won’t vote for Trump’s nominee.
What if a confirmation doesn’t happen before the election? Key Republican senators have said they won’t support holding hearings before Election Day. But a new Congress takes office Jan. 3, so the current Senate, with the current Republican majority, has only until then to confirm a Trump nominee. Trump, however, remains in office until Jan. 20 at noon, so a new Republican majority could also confirm a Trump pick in the new year even if he loses.
What if Republicans lose the Senate in November? Can they still vote after the election? Absolutely. That’s true even if Democrats win the White House and the Senate — anytime before Jan. 3, the current Senate Republicans can still go ahead and confirm a conservative nominee. That would sew up a very conservative majority on the Supreme Court for a generation or more.
Republicans currently control the White House. Shouldn’t they get to nominate whoever they want? Technically, yes. According to the Constitution, the president appoints Supreme Court justices and the Senate approves the pick.
What difference does it make, practically, if Trump gets another justice? There are several major cases on the docket already. Here are two ways in which a conservative majority could likely have an almost immediate impact:
Read more here.
When Judge Amy Coney Barrett delivers her opening statement today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, she’ll focus on how her family, an upbringing modeled on service and faith and her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, influenced her opportunity to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
Barrett, who clerked for Scalia, will say it was his “reasoning” that shaped her and that his “judicial philosophy was straightforward: A judge must apply the law as written, not as the judge wishes it were,” according to a copy of the statement released Sunday in advance of the hearing.
The late justice, she is expected to say, taught her more than just law and he was “devoted to his family, resolute in his beliefs, and fearless of criticism.”
Throughout her legal career, Barrett says in the prepared remarks, she resolved to maintain the same perspective as Scalia.
Nominated by President Trump last month to the nation’s highest court to fill the vacancy on the bench following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett will praise the late justice for opening doors — even though the two women are ideological opposites.
“I have been nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat, but no one will ever take her place,” Barrett will say. “I will be forever grateful for the path she marked and the life she led.”
For all the reasons that Trump sees Barrett as a potential successor to Ginsburg, Democratic senators and liberal advocates have long been poised to oppose her, warning particularly that she could roll back abortion rights and invalidate the Affordable Care Act.
Barrett, the mother of seven children, was a finalist for the Supreme Court spot that went to Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. She is a proven conservative with a compelling personal story.
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Amy Coney Barrett’s fast-track Supreme Court confirmation goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee today as the raucous fight over Barrett’s nomination spills into public view for a week’s worth of hearings.
Here’s what you need to know:
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