Amy Coney Barrett is Confirmed to the Supreme Court

On the evening of Monday, October 26, the Senate confirmed 48-year-old Amy Coney Barret to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. The vote passed 52-48 in Senate, one of the closest votes in history, and was taken from nomination to confirmation in only one month. To democrats, this decision seems like the end of days. To Republicans, it’s another victory in Mitch Mcconnell's campaign to put conservatives in federal court seats. This confirmation has come at one of the most tumultuous in American history and is laden with controversy. 

The stage was set for a contentious battle over Supreme Court seats with the unprecedented political division under president Donald Trump. Added to that were the Coronavirus pandemic and conflagration of the social justice movement have made this one of if not the most politically divided times in American history. When justice Ginsburg died in mid-September, after a long fight with pancreatic cancer, the hostility overfilling her seat began immediately. Democrats pleaded that the seat should stay vacant until a new president is elected or the incumbent stays to make a nomination. They believed it was fairer for the American people to have some say in the nomination in this way. Republicans, of course, did not listen to this as they wanted to seize the opportunity to put a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. This was infuriating to many democrats since in Obama's last year as president Mitch McConnell and other prominent republicans delayed a Supreme Court nomination for 293 days, twice as long as any other nomination, citing that a justice should not be placed on the court in an election year. Since then Trump has nominated 2 Supreme Court justices, 3 counting Amy Coney Barrett. This is egregious hypocrisy from republican politicians to hold Obama's nominee for 293 days and push Trumps to confirmation in 30. It really goes to show that there was no objection to confirming a justice in an election year in 2016, just an objection to confirming a progressive justice.  

On top of the election year hypocrisy and general D.C sliminess, Amy Coney Barrett holds views that many Democrats view as antiquated and dangerous (to put it kindly). Chief among these is her stance on abortion, a hot button topic for both parties. In her appearances before the Senate, she mostly kept quiet on this issue, but democrats believe she will overturn the crucial 1972 Roe V. Wade decision. In 2016 Trump said, “That will happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court” when asked about overturning Roe v. Wade in a presidential debate. Based on this and Amy Coney Barret’s perceived, somewhat accurately, hostility towards abortion it makes sense to assume the worst. However, also in 2016, Barret said, “I don't think the core case – Roe's core holding that, you know, women have a right to an abortion – I don't think that would change. But I think the question of whether people can get very late-term abortions, how many restrictions can be put on clinics – I think that would change” when asked about a hypothetical scenario where the Supreme Court might allow states to pass their own restrictions on abortions. Barrett certainly won’t maintain abortion rights as democrats would prefer if given the opportunity, but this also probably won’t be a return to criminalized abortions from pre-1973. Another issue democrats have with Barrett is her track record with LGTBQ rights. She is extremely Catholic and as such is not very in tune with progressive thinking on this subject. She does not have a record of being openly anti-LGTBQ but she seems to have agreed with the dissenting opinion from the 2015 Supreme Court decision federally legalizing gay marriage. This opinion did not state that LGBTQ people should not be able to marry, but rather that it should be a decision made in state courts. Of course, this would be bad for the LGBTQ community as fighting in individual state courts would take way longer and probably never succeed in some states. More popular anti-Barrett sentiments are in regards to her stances on race issues and her potential inclination to lower health care coverage.

In a year that already feels like the end of the world, this confirmation is akin to an asteroid slamming into the earth for democrats. It is a decision that will shape our judicial system and policy for decades. If Trump ends up winning the election the fact that Barrett was pushed through the Senate so fast will matter less, but if Biden wins, her seat will serve as a reminder both metaphorically and politically of the lasting impact Trump has had on America.