Senate Democrats used the first hours of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings today to torch the GOP’s decision to ‘rush’ through the process amid a pandemic just week’s before the election – and called it an effort to take down Obamacare, setting the stage for a fiery week of hearings.
In contrast Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham put Barrett in a ‘category of excellence’ and called her a ‘worthy successor’ to the late Justice Antonin Scalia – the conservative justice whose ‘judicial philosophy is mine,’ Barrett has said repeatedly.
Barrett is not replacing a conservative justice, however, but a legendary progressive Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The dividing lines were sharply drawn this morning with Democrats determined to focus on the alleged threat Barrett represents to the Affordable Care Act, highlighting cases of people who they say would lose care if it were struck down, and Republicans accusing their opponents of attacking her conservative Catholic faith.
She is a member of the tiny charismatic People of Praise group.
The AP has documented extensive ties Barrett and her family have to the community, including that an old directory listed her as being one of the organization’s “handmaids,” now called a “woman leader.”
She was a trustee of the group’s Trinity Schools, and as a young law student, lived in a house owned by one of its co-founders.
People of Praise is not a church, but a faith community.
It grew out of the Catholic charismatic movement rooted in Pentecostalism that began in the late 1960s.
The movement emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and prophecy, according to former members and experts who have studied the movement.
People of Praise was founded in 1971 in South Bend, Indiana, and now has 22 branches and around 1,700 members across North America, according to its website.
Among its teachings are that men are divinely ordained as the “head” of both the family and faith, and it is the duty of wives to submit to them.
People who have been involved in and studied the organization say it is authoritarian and hierarchical, and some former members told AP of practices such as leaders deciding who can date who.
Barrett grew up in the community, and as an adult, made the choice to join.
The groups stays away from politics, except in one area: abortion where they believe it’s a heinous crime.
In the cases that she considered during her three years on the federal appeals court in Chicago, Barrett has a voting record that is almost entirely conservative in regard to issues such as gun rights, abortion and immigration.
Barrett has criticized the Supreme Court’s 5-4 and 6-3 decisions upholding key sections of Obamacare.
Both were written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, but in a 2015 interview on NPR, Barrett opined that in her view “the dissenters had the better of the argument.”
In a lecture at Jacksonville University in 2016 just days before the election, Barrett warned that if Hillary Clinton were elected, the court would experience a “sea change” in ideology.
But as Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice puts it, it is Barrett’s ideology that now presents a potential sea change.
Aron says President Trump has “made clear his two qualifications” for a Supreme Court justice: She must be “opposed to Roe v. Wade,” and “the candidate has to, like Trump, do whatever she can to overturn the Affordable Care Act.”
Aron, and others, contend that Barrett’s record fits the bill on both counts, and much more.
Outside today’s opening hearing there were dueling protests and 21 arrests as opponents of her nomination highlighted her professed opposition to abortion, while supporters called for her rapid confirmation.
The potential threat she represents to Roe v. Wade was less mentioned by Democrats than the issue of Obamacare, but they are expected to question her as early as tomorrow on whether she sees the 1973 establishment of abortion rights as settled law.
And Trump himself live-tweeted the event, attacking Democrats and questioning why they were even allowed to speak.
The Republican-controlled Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, lined up the hearings immediately after the death of Justice Ginsburg.
Trump’s nomination of Barrett, a conservative appeals court judge who taught law at Notre Dame, would expand the conservative majority on the court to 6-3.
Senate Democrats are outvoted and can’t rely on the filibuster to save them thanks to a rules change, even with polling showing the public would prefer to wait until after the elections to confirm a judge to a lifetime appointment.
They also can’t control the schedule, so long as Republicans manage to stay healthy and can come to the Capitol to meet a quorum to secure a vote.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who tested positive for the coronavirus, and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who tested negative but self-isolated, were both in the hearing room today.
Lee said he was cleared to attend in person and was spotted, like most senators, not wearing a mask while he spoke.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who tested positive, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was self-isolating because of exposure to Lee, both took part remotely.
With the Q&A portion of the hearing not slated to start until tomorrow, senators spent nearly three hours this morning taking shots at each other and previewing what is expected to be heated hearings, even as Democrats appear powerless to stop Republicans from placing Barrett on the Supreme Court before Election Day.
University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck says he expects that with Barrett’s confirmation, the court would be transformed into the most conservative court since the 1930s, a court that is much more aggressive in its conservative agenda.
“When it comes to big picture cases, running the spectrum from abortion to religion to campaign finance to everything, there is no longer going to be … any concern about a squishy median when you have six solid conservatives from which to find five” justices to form a majority, Vladeck said.