Hypocrisy and the Supreme Court: Why Amy Coney Barrett should not be appointed

On the 26th of October this year, Trump announced his Supreme Court nominee – Amy Coney Barrett. Currently a federal appellate judge on the 7th Circuit and a law professor at Notre Dame, Barrett has also served as a law clerk under former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Last year, Barrett was one of Trump’s finalist picks for the Supreme Court seat eventually given to Brett Kavanaugh. Having shown a strong conservative voting record, Barrett has been vocally backed by the far-right, while Democratic congresspeople and activists have long opposed her.

Recently, news broke that Amy Coney Barrett had ties stronger than previously thought to a fringe religious organisation called People of Praise. During her law degree, official members of People of Praise have confirmed that Barrett, as well as her now-husband Jesse, lived with one of the founders of the group, Kevin Ranaghan. Although Barrett has stated that her staunch Catholic faith will not “bear in the discharge of [her] duties as a judge,” her involvement in People of Praise has led to questions on the validity of that statement. People of Praise has long been criticised, often by ex-members, for its strict hierarchical power structure in which women are expected to be subordinate. In addition, People of Praise members must enter a vow to support each other “financially and materially and spiritually,” donating 5% of all earnings to the group. Although People of Praise scrubbed records of Barrett’s involvement with the group in 2017, following her nomination for appeals court judge, Barrett also stood as a trustee at a school, affiliated with People of Praise, which has openly opposed to gay marriage. Due to this information, many question Barrett’s involvement with the group, financial or otherwise, and whether this involvement may influence Barrett’s decisions should she be appointed as a US Supreme Court judge.

Beyond Barrett’s religious affiliations, her demonstrated beliefs surrounding the Second Amendment, immigration policy, and abortion put landmark decisions such as Roe v. Wade in danger, as well as potentially blocking the ability for gun reform in the United States. Last year, Barrett was the single dissenter when a 7th Circuit panel majority rejected a challenge to the Second Amendment from a man convicted of, among other things, prohibited possession of a firearm. Barrett contended that “Holding that the ban is constitutional… does not put the government through its paces, but instead treats the Second Amendment as a second-class right.” In June of this year, Barrett dissented in the 7th Circuit blocking of Trump’s proposed policy that would disadvantage green card applicants who also applied to receive public assistance. Barrett, like Scalia, holds the originalist view, contending that adherence to precedent, a standard practice in the Supreme Court, may be “unlawful” if the precedent conflicts with the “original meaning of the Constitution.” This view could cause significant problems in a court which decides the rule of law for the entire nation, given the historically ambiguous and much disagreed-about interpretations of the Constitution since its creation some 200 years ago. In addition, Barrett has not only opposed the Affordable Care Act, but has supported the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s opposition to the Act’s attempt to accommodate religious interests in its contraceptive coverage. Later, Barrett recused herself from the dispute due to impartiality, making unclear how she would handle a similar dispute if she were appointed to the Supreme Court. The Human Rights campaign have called her “an absolute threat to LGBTQ rights,” and The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organisation, while declining to comment on Barrett specifically, did say that a conservative appointment would “be devastating for sexual and reproductive health and rights.” It is quite clear that Barrett, were she appointed, poses a clear and tangible threat to the human rights of many in the United States.

Beyond Barrett’s potentially dangerous and detrimental voting choices, that she was nominated at all has exposed hypocrisy within Republican congressmembers. In 2016, Republicans refused to vote on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, intended to fill the seat formerly held by Scalia. On the refusal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, “All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.” McConnell has since done a shameless about-face on the topic, now outspokenly in support of confirming a new nominee less than one month before the 2020 presidential election. In an attempt to justify what is quite clearly a power grab for a stronger conservative majority in the Supreme Court, McConnell stated, “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.” McConnell, in having stated this, essentially confirmed what many of us already knew – that, in 2016, the Republicans had no actual justification for denying the vote on Obama’s nomination. It might seem hypocritical, then, for McConnell to continue pushing for a vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, however, likewise unconcerned with precedent, he continues to endorse the confirmation hearing scheduled for the 12th of October.

Although the confirmation hearing may not go ahead quite as soon as was planned, due in large part to the massive outbreak of COVID-19 following President Trump’s infection, Republican Congress members should receive the full force of criticisms for their hypocrisy. In fact, Lindsey Graham, in 2016, said, “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican 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.’” Curiously, Graham is now working closely with Trump to push forward with Barrett’s confirmation hearing. It seems a reasonable conclusion to come to, if we are to take McConnell and Graham’s own advice, that the seat should be left to fill by the next president.

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