President Donald Trump officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the United States Supreme Court during a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House Saturday.
‘Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court,’ Trump said, making his nomination official as Barrett stood to his side. ‘She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution: Judge Amy Coney Barrett.’
Barrett, 48, is a New Orleans native who attended Rhodes College and received her law degree from Notre Dame law school, where she later taught.
She lives in South Bend, Indiana with her husband and seven children.
If her nomination is successful, it will give the Supreme Court a hard jerk to the right, as she’ll be replacing the court’s most liberal member, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died September 18.
Liberals fear that Barrett could chip away the ability for women to get a legal abortion, as the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade revolved around a right to privacy, which isn’t explicitly outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
Barrett would also be replacing a Jewish member of the court with a devout Catholic, bringing the number of Catholics on the bench to six.
Overall, there are nine Supreme Court justices.
Barrett’s faith will likely play a role in her forthcoming Judiciary Committee hearings.
She’s a member of the People of Praise, a small Catholic group that teaches husbands are the heads of the family.
During her 2017 confirmation hearings for a seat on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit, Barrett testifed that while she was a devout Catholic, those views wouldn’t bleed into her decisions on the bench.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, famously told Barrett, ‘The dogma lives loudly within you.’
People of Praise, the group to which Barrett belongs, emerged out of the revivalist movement of the 1960s, which blended Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism.
Founded in South Bend, Indiana, in 1971 and with 1,700 members, the group describes itself as a community that “support[s] each other financially and materially and spiritually”.
William Cash, chairman of the Catholic Herald, said members of People of Praise were on “the conservative side of the church and are unlikely to be the sort of progressives who are fanatical about Pope Francis”.
“There’s nothing particularly extreme about People of Praise – other than it is very hierarchical and women are not given senior positions,” he said.
Former members of People of Praise and religious scholars have described an organization that appears to dominate some members’ everyday lives, in which so-called “heads”, or spiritual advisers, oversee major decisions. Married women count their husbands as their “heads” and members are expected to tithe 5% of their income to the organization.
According to a former member, Adrian Reimers, “all one’s decisions and dealings become the concern of one’s ‘head’, and in turn potentially become known to the leadership”.
Heidi Schlumpf, a national correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, called the group’s level of secrecy “concerning”.
Conservatives argue public questions about religious beliefs should be excluded.
Liberals suggest Barrett’s beliefs could overshadow her ability to administer unconflicted jurisprudence on issues such as abortion and contraception, thereby threatening foundational values of religious liberty.
Barrett clerked for the late conservative justice Antonin Scalia, who argued that there is no constitutional right to abortion.
The gravest threat Barrett poses, according to many on the left, is to Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that ensured abortion rights.
In 2012, as a professor at Notre Dame, Barrett signed a letter attacking a provision of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform known as Obamacare, that forced insurance companies to offer coverage for contraception, a facet of the law later modified for religious institutions.
Republican attempts to bring down the ACA have repeatedly fallen short. If Barrett is confirmed before the November election, one of her first cases shortly after it could determine its fate.