The Potential Consequences of Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court Confirmation

By: Phillip Seo 

The United States Senate proceeded with the confirmation hearing process for federal judge Amy Coney Barrett on Monday, October 12, 2020 after President Trump nominated her to fill the vacant seat left by late liberal icon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a result, partisan battle lines have been drawn between the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate as there are major disagreements between how the confirmation hearings for Judge Barret should be carried out. 

Democrats believe the confirmation hearings should happen after the November election as they believe “the people should decide” and that the Affordable Care Act, LGBTQ rights, DACA protections, and much more will be reversed if the Supreme Court becomes mainly conservative. Republicans, on the other hand, believe it is their constitutional duty to fill a Supreme Court seat even when it is right before an election and believe that Judge Barret has outstanding qualifications and is a highly respectable judge who will make a great addition to the Supreme Court. 

PATRICK SEMANSKY/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Amy Coney Barrett is an American attorney and jurist who graduated from Notre Dame Law School and serves as a circuit judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. She comes from a strong Catholic background and has 7 children, two of which are adopted which helps influence her conservative values concerning the abortion of children. In addition, she served as a clerk for Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as well as for late conservative icon, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. 

Judge Barrett, like her mentor, Antonin Scalia, is an advocate for interpreting the Constitution as people understood it at the time of its ratification. This type of ideology is known as originalism. She also is known for deferring to flawed super precedents, which are usually cases that are settled for as “the law of the land” such as Roe V. Wade. She considered precedent court cases such as Roe V. Wade as those with weak interpretations and presumptions of policies and principles that have been established. In addition, she believes that federal judges should not be the driving forces of resolving controversial political issues. 

Her record on issues such as abortion, healthcare, gun rights, and much more has been consistently conservative. She criticized President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a “violation of religious freedom”, defended the right to life all the way from birth to natural death (anti-abortion), and believes in the right to bear arms as stated in the Second Amendment. She also defended the dissenters of the Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality, including same sex marriage, the law of the land. Furthermore, in 2015, Barrett sent a letter to Catholic bishops which included a statement saying that marriage and family were founded on the principles of having a commitment between a man and woman. 

Despite having her conservative views, in the first Senate hearings for Judge Barret, when Senators asked Barrett about her perspectives on issues such as LGBTQ rights, immigration policies, the Affordable Care Act, voting rights, and other heavily debated topics between Democrats and Republicans, she replied by saying she can’t express her views and weigh in on these issues. 

From the Democratic perspective, Amy Coney Barrett is the antithesis of their values and ideologies. She is a strong, conservative woman with Christian values who has criticized liberal policies for many years. Democrats claim that the Republicans are hypocritical when they say that Amy Coney Barrett should get confirmed into the Supreme Court during an election year because the Democrats tried doing the same thing but 9 months before the 2016 election for Judge Merick Garland after the passing of late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, which got turned down by the Republicans as they believed “the people should decide” who gets elected and nominates a judge to the Supreme Court. Unlike Judge Amy Coney Barret, the Republican-controlled Senate decided back in 2016 that Judge Merick Garland wouldn’t even get confirmation hearings because of how close it was to an election year. The Democrats want the Senate to do the same thing they did back in 2016 and wait for the “people to decide” by voting which would determine if the Senate stays in the control of the Republicans and if President Trump would continue to be president, which would help determine who gets to nominate and confirm a judge to the Supreme Court. In addition, Democrats fear that all sorts of liberal cases and policies such as Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and much more will be reversed if Judge Barrett gets into the Supreme Court. In summary, they don’t want Judge Barrett to get confirmed and will do everything in their power to stop or delay her confirmation. 

From the Republican perspective, Amy Coney Barrett is the perfect judge to go into the Supreme Court as Judge Barrett because she shares the same values and ideologies as them. The Republicans believe that it is their constitutional duty to have hearings for a president’s Supreme Court nominee. They also counter argued the Democrats’ claim of how Republicans were hypocritical by saying that the circumstances in 2016 were different than in 2020 because the Republicans control both the Presidency and the Senate as of currently. In addition, they claim that the Democrats are holding inherent biases against Judge Barrett because of her political ideologies and that it is unfair because the Republicans believe she is an extremely qualified nominee who deserves a fair and impartial confirmation hearing. The Republicans are trying to push for the confirmation of Judge Barrett before the 2020 election as there is a possibility that the Senate could turn blue (Democratic) according to national pollings, which could mean that Judge Barret would not get confirmed into the Supreme Court. If Judge Barrett was to get confirmed into the Supreme Court, there would be a court consisting of 6 conservatives to only 3 liberals, making the court solidly conservative. 

The Senate is expected to vote on the confirmation of Judge Barrett very soon and the result could fundamentally transform how America functions as many policies and court cases could be reversed or implemented. Barrett’s nomination has intensified the polarization between Democrats and Republicans and it could potentially have an impact on the 2020 election as it could motivate Americans to vote to protect or dismantle policies. In addition, if Barrett gets confirmed, she and the rest of the Supreme Court may have to deal with a court case dealing with the 2020 election results which could decide whether President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden is declared the victor. If Judge Barrett does indeed get confirmed, her impact on the course of American democracy will be unmistakable and will change the course of American politics significantly. America is waiting anxiously for the outcome and potential consequences of Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearings.