SCOTUS political theater day 2
So the first day’s video of the opening day of confirmation hearings for Justice Amy Coney Barrett was around five-and-a-half hours. Day 2 was 11 hours, 18 minutes, and 15 seconds. In the words of Harry Caray: “Holy cow!”
Originalist- In English, that means I interpret the Constitution as a law. I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. That meaning doesn’t change over time, and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it. Textualist- A judge approaches the text as it was written at the time and didn’t infuse their own meaning into it. Originalists do not always agree, and neither do textualists. It’s not a mechanical exercise (Amy Coney Barrett). So basically, after hearing what I heard her say, I could summarize it in a point I have made at least a few times before. A constitutional originalist and textualist read the Constitution and laws the same way all Christians SHOULD read the Bible. As Dr. David L. Cooper, Founder and President of the Biblical Research Society, said, when the plain sense of scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.
ACB could not have handled this hearing any better than she did. It’s a legislator’s job to pass statutes and choose policy. It is a judge’s job to interpret those laws and apply them to facts in particular cases. Judges don’t have the power by fiat to impose their will or policy preferences. They don’t get to choose the results they prefer. They have to go with what elected representatives, who are accountable to the people, have chosen. The law stays the same until it is lawfully changed (Judge Barrett). Love that!
I’m not a fan of Senator Dick Durbin, but I’m not bothered by any of his questions because it gave Judge Barrett a chance to answer some tough questions that we might not have heard the answers to otherwise. Up to this point of what I have listened to, Durbin had some of the most substantive questions of any Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee so far.
When Senator Amy Klobuchar gets annoyed or angry, she sounds whiny, like she is about to cry. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Amy Klobuchar quoted Republicans who stalled the nomination of Merrick Garland before the 2016 election. What they fail to mention is that Democrats made the same arguments Republicans are making now. No principles factor in either side of this unless a Senator has taken the same stance both times. To my knowledge, no one has so far. If Joe Biden wins, likely making U.S. Senator Kamala Harris President by 2024, and a Supreme Court seat opens up, both parties will switch sides again. I remember thinking that Senator Klobuchar wasn’t so bad during part of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Man, was I wrong! Judge Barrett handled it well as she did the rest of it, though. And if I hear ONE MORE THING about the “Ginsburg seat…” 😡 … It’s not HER seat. She didn’t own it. She didn’t pay for it. She didn’t build it or put it together. It’s NOT. HER. SEAT. Therefore, whether or not the current nominee is anything like her is entirely irrelevant. That’s also why her “final wish” has no bearing on what should happen going forward. I also found the dark money argument between Senator Whitehouse and Senator Cruz amusing.
“Your side is funded by dark money!”
“No, your side is funded by dark money!”
I see a pattern here.
U.S. Senator Chris Coons said Republicans were rushing the ACB nomination. FactCheck.org noted that the late Associate Justice John Paul Stevens was confirmed in 19 days in 1975; former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed in 33 days in 1981. Ginsburg was confirmed in 42 days in 1993. Fast? Yes. Unprecedented? Hardly.
88 University of Notre Dame colleagues of Judge Barrett are calling on her to halt her nomination process until after the election for three reasons:
1. Voting is underway
2. RBG’s final wish
3. The politics of Judge Barrett’s nomination will further inflame our civic wounds.
Notice that none of those reasons have anything to do with the constitutionality of the process. And two out of the three reasons are rooted in emotion.
Senator Mazie K. Hirono was particularly awful on so many levels with this hearing. To go through them, all would take an entire blog post in itself. So I am just going to focus on one. President Donald J. Trump’s ACB nomination has been defined as a superspreader event, as she pointed out. I’m not agreeing with or disputing that because I haven’t done the work to see how many were infected, how many were there, and now a superspreader event is defined. But, just for fun, how many of those that became infected died?
I don’t think I could be a judge because doing it right would mean compartmentalizing personal beliefs so that they wouldn’t factor into the decision-making process. As a believer, although I often do this imperfectly (sometimes with complete awareness), being a disciple of Christ requires that he is the primary informer of all decisions.
Judges don’t have campaign promises (Amy Coney Barrett). I made it through all 11 hours of yesterday’s hearing. This is the 10th nominee I have watched in confirmation hearings since I saw one for the first time in 2005. She has conducted herself, both in answers and demeanor, the best of all I have seen.
