Law Justice Amy Coney Barrett Megathread

So the announcer at the rose garden announced her as she walked out with the president.

will find an article soon.

e: he official announced her as his third pick.

e2:

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The long-term academic, appeals court judge and mother of seven was the hot favourite for the Supreme Court seat.

Donald Trump - who as sitting president gets to select nominees - reportedly once said he was "saving her" for this moment: when elderly Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and a vacancy on the nine-member court arose.

It took the president just over a week to fast-track the 48-year-old conservative intellectual into the wings. This is his chance to tip the court make-up even further to the right ahead of the presidential election, when he could lose power.

Barrett's record on gun rights and immigration cases imply she would be as reliable a vote on the right of the court, as Ginsburg was on the left, according to Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University.

"Ginsburg maintained one of the most consistent liberal voting records in the history of the court. Barrett has the same consistency and commitment," he adds. "She is not a work-in-progress like some nominees. She is the ultimate 'deliverable' for conservative votes."

And her vote, alongside a conservative majority, could make the difference for decades ahead, especially on divisive issues such as abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act (the Obama-era health insurance provider).

Barrett's legal opinions and remarks on abortion and gay marriage have made her popular with the religious right, but earned vehement opposition from liberals.

But as a devout Catholic, she has repeatedly insisted her faith does not compromise her work.

Barrett lives in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Jesse, a former federal prosecutor who is now with a private firm. The couple have seven children, including two adopted from Haiti. She is the oldest of seven children herself.

Known for her sharp intellect, she studied at the University of Notre Dame's Law School, graduating first in her class, and was a clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, who, in her words, was the "staunchest conservative" on the Supreme Court at the time.

Like her mentor Scalia, she is an originalist, which is a belief that judges should attempt to interpret the words of the Constitution as the authors intended when they were written.

Many liberals oppose that strict approach, saying there must be scope for moving with the times.

Barrett has spent much of her career as a professor at her alma mater, Notre Dame, where she was voted professor of the year multiple times. One of students, Deion Kathawa, who took a class with her earlier this year, told the BBC she was popular because she involved everyone in discussions. He found her "collegial, civil, fair-minded, intellectually sharp, and devoted to the rule of law secured by our Constitution".

Another student told the WBEZ new site: "I feel somewhat conflicted because … she's a great professor. She never brought up politics in her classroom... But I do not agree with her ideologies at all. I don't think she would be good for this country and the Supreme Court."

Barrett was selected by President Trump to serve as a federal appeals court judge in 2017, sitting on the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago. She regularly commutes to the court from her home - more than an hour and half away. The South Bend Tribune once carried an interview from a friend saying she was an early riser, getting up between 04:00 and 05:00. "It's true," says Paolo Carozza, a professor at Notre Dame. "I see her at the gym shortly after then."

Carozza has watched Barrett go from student to teacher to leading judge, and speaks about her effusively. "It's a small, tight-knit community, so I know her socially too. She is ordinary, warm, kind."

A religious man himself, he thinks it is reasonable to question a candidate about whether their beliefs would interfere with their work. "But she has answered those questions forcefully... I fear she is now being reduced to an ideological caricature, and that pains me, knowing what a rich and thoughtful person she is."

Her confirmation hearing for the appeals court seat featured a now-infamous encounter with Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voiced concerns about how her faith could affect her thinking on the law. "The dogma lives loudly within you," said Mrs Feinstein in an accusatory tone. Defiant Catholics adopted the phrase as a tongue-in-cheek slogan on mugs.

Barrett has defended herself on multiple occasions. "I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge," she once said.

However, her links to a particularly conservative Christian faith group, People of Praise, have been much discussed in the US press. LGBT groups have flagged the group's network of schools, which have guidelines stating a belief that sexual relations should only happen between heterosexual married couples.

LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign has voiced strong opposition to Barrett's confirmation, declaring her an "absolute threat to LGBTQ rights".

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organisation, declined comment on Barrett specifically, but said appointing any new conservative Supreme Court justice would "be devastating for sexual and reproductive health and rights".

To secure the position on the Supreme Court - a lifelong job - Barrett will still have to pass a gruelling confirmation hearing, where Democratic senators are likely to take a tough line, bringing up many of their voters' concerns.

Professor Turley thinks she will take it her stride, due to the "civil and unflappable disposition" she showed during the hostile questioning for the appeals court position.

"She is someone who showed incredible poise and control… her [appeals court] confirmation hearing was a dry run for a Supreme Court confirmation. She has already played in the World Series."

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President Trump on Saturday announced he has chosen Amy Coney Barrett as his pick to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- a move that could significantly shift the nation's highest court to the right if she's confirmed by the Senate.

“Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation's most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court," Trump said in the Rose Garden alongside Barrett. "She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution -- Judge Amy Coney Barrett.”

Trump announced Barrett, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who had been considered by Trump for the vacancy left by the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018. Trump eventually chose now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh instead.

Ginsburg, a liberal trailblazer who was a consistent vote on the court’s liberal wing, died last week at 87. The announcement sets up what is likely to be a fierce confirmation battle as Republicans attempt to confirm Barrett before the election on Nov. 3.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to put the nominee up for a vote, despite the objections of Senate Democrats -- who cite McConnell’s refusal to give Obama nominee Merrick Garland a hearing in 2016.

A source familiar with the process told Fox News that Oct. 12 is the target date for the beginning of confirmation hearings. This means that Barrett, 48, could potentially be confirmed by the end of the month and just days before the election.

Barrett, a former Notre Dame professor and a mother of seven, is a devout Catholic and pro-life -- beliefs that were raised as a problem by Democrats during her 2017 confirmation hearing to her seat on the 7th Circuit.

"The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern," Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told Barrett. She was eventually confirmed 55-43.

Trump was also believed to have been considering candidates including 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa. Trump had said publicly that he had five potential picks he was considering.

A source told Fox News that Trump had taken note of how “tough” Barrett was when she faced the tough confirmation fight in 2017 and had kept her very much at the front of his mind since then.

The source said Trump met her during the considerations on who to replace Kennedy in 2018, talked to a lot of people about her and wanted to keep her in place through the Kavanaugh vetting process in case there was an issue. Kavanaugh did face hurdles in his confirmation battle, but that came after his nomination was announced.

The source said that after Ginsburg died, Barrett was the only candidate he met and spoke with at length, although he made a few calls to Lagoa because some people were pushing him very hard to do so. But ultimately Barrett was always at the front of Trump’s mind to fill a Ginsburg vacancy.

Should she be confirmed, Barrett would be Trump’s third Supreme Court confirmation. That’s more than two-term Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- who each put two justices on the court.

Democrats have vowed to oppose the pick, but the Senate math does not appear to be in their favor. Republicans have 53 Senate seats and Barrett only needs 50 to be confirmed -- with Vice President Mike Pence acting as a tie breaker in such a case.

So far, only Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have indicated they oppose moving forward with a confirmation before the election. Murkowski has since suggested she still may vote for the nominee.

Fox News' John Roberts, Mike Emanuel and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

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Unfortunately I cant quite summon up a link right now or even properly remember since its late where I am and happened a while ago, but I recall a few Breitbart articles early on from Trump's first few court noms that the Dems (mostly Feinstein IIRC to nobody's shock) were this close to insinuating that their Catholic faith made them unsuitable to be judges due to the pro-life stance inherent there. The current tack of "OH MY GOD EVIL CATHOLIC" isn't new or shocking to me, I am afraid.
Dude, Feinstein famously did it to Barrett herself when she was nominated to the federal courts. "The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's a concern" was a fucking memed quote back then.

Washington Post article on the implications of a 6:3 Republican appointee: Democrat appointee SCOTUS

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...920cd4-fe85-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html
https://archive.vn/0Ul7A
Jesus, what an article. "EXCLUDING NON-CITIZENS FROM COUNTING FOR LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS IS UNDEMOCRATIC REEEEE." If anything, non-citizens giving more power to blue areas despite not being able to vote is what's undemocratic, Jesus. The article must be a deep undercover trolling operation, because it makes the case against its own claims.
 
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OH FUCK THIS ARTICLE just because they are acting like Roberts doesn't fucking cuck out every time.

I think what they're concerned about is that the Democrats on the court won't be able to rely on Roberts voting with them half the time and swinging the result in their favor.

I don't normally Fisk articles, but this article needs to be Fisked

Roberts was the swing vote in the 2012 decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. But a new challenge to Obamacare is slated for the upcoming court term, which will begin next month, and if a new justice has been seated, the court’s three remaining liberals may not be able to save the statute. In theory, the case is narrowly about the constitutionality of the ACA’s individual mandate, but if the court finds that the mandate is “inseverable” from the rest of the legislation, the new majority could bring down the entire law — an explicit goal of Republicans, including Trump, since Obamacare’s inception.

You can make a case that the individual mandate is a key part of Obamacare and that it should go

The biggest target for conservatives is Roe v. Wade. As a candidate, Trump promised to nominate justices who would overturn the landmark 1973 decision, which legalized abortion nationwide. On this point, at least, he has been true to his word. Last term, Trump’s first two Supreme Court nominees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, voted to uphold a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to maintain hospital admitting privileges, even though, four years ago, the court had invalidated a similar law in Texas, protecting women’s right to access abortion. Once again, Roberts was the deciding vote, joining the liberals to strike down the Louisiana law. But a third Trump justice — presumably one disposed to vote like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — could solidify the court’s anti-choice bloc. Even if Roe isn’t immediately overturned, a stronger conservative majority could let stand other abortion restrictions that come before the court, including bans on certain procedures or abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

If Roe v Wade does go it seems like abortion law would be up to the states, which seems fair. I'm not convinced Roe v Wade would go though - like they say it's more likely new cases would arrive and be decided in a different way.

But reproductive rights are not limited to abortion. Last term, in Trump v. Pennsylvania, the court heard a challenge involving the ACA’s mandate that insurers cover contraception, holding that the Trump administration had the legal authority to exempt employers from the mandate. The court did not determine whether the administration’s regulation satisfied all of the procedural rules or whether a future administration could roll back the exemption and require insurers to provide coverage even if an employer has religious or moral objections to contraception. If either of those issues come before the court again, it will be Ginsburg’s voice, as much as her vote, that will be missed: Although she was in a hospital bed when the court heard oral arguments, her displeasure at having to revisit women’s access to contraception was evident. In her dissenting opinion, she chastised the court for leaving “women workers to fend for themselves” and casting “aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree.” Despite this, Gorsuch and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. concluded in their concurring opinion that Congress cannot require employers to provide women with insurance coverage for contraception. With Ginsburg gone, their view may prevail, throwing up a roadblock for any future administration or Congress to expand access to contraception.

I'm not sure that the government should be in the business of compelling employers to fund employee contraception

The change brought by a 6-3 conservative majority would radiate beyond reproductive rights or access to health coverage. It would affect issues at the heart of a functioning democracy and government — positioning the GOP to maintain its grip on political power at the expense of democratic principles and preventing historically disenfranchised groups from accessing civic institutions.

In Shelby County v. Holder, the court did away with the Voting Rights Act provision that required states to clear potentially discriminatory changes to their election laws with the Justice Department, with Roberts concluding that “our country has changed” since the legislation was passed. With another vote, conservatives might move to invalidate what remains of the act, including Section 2, which provides for restrictive voting laws to be struck if they result in discrimination, with or without intent.

The new court could also greenlight the Trump administration’s plan to exclude noncitizens from the census and from congressional apportionment, which would further entrench Republican political power. In 2019, a 5-4 majority, with Roberts and Ginsburg in the majority, rejected the Commerce Department’s rationale for adding a citizenship question to the census. This summer, the president responded by directing the commerce secretary to exclude noncitizens from the census count, which will be used to determine how many congressional seats each state receives. A three-judge court invalidated the president’s proposal, but a different outcome is foreseeable if the question reaches a 6-3 Supreme Court.

Having non-citizens determine congressional appointments reminds me of the 3/5 compromise.

Although in the abstract, the court unanimously affirmed the “one person, one vote” principle in 2016, it did not find that states are required to draw legislative districts based on the number of people, rather than the number of citizens. Just this week, Alabama asked the courts to fast-track a case that could answer that question. If the issue comes before a 6-3 Supreme Court, the court could say both that states can exclude noncitizens when they draw legislative districts, and that states can create districts with vastly different numbers of people in them. Either conclusion would allow Republican legislatures to overrepresent traditional Republican strongholds and underrepresent Democratic-leaning areas. States could make political representation even more unequal and undemocratic if the new court prohibits citizens from adopting independent redistricting commissions, which take the task of legislative redistricting out of the hands of self-interested lawmakers. A bare majority of the court approved independent redistricting commissions in 2015, with Ginsburg and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the majority. Now that both of those justices are no longer on the court, the conservatives could revisit that opinion.

It seems like it should be one citizen one vote, not one person one vote.

The Supreme Court’s telephonic oral arguments mute its female and liberal justices

A more conservative court would be poised to exempt religious objectors from complying with statutes that prohibit discrimination against racial minorities, women, the disabled, religious minorities and the LGBT community. This could mean that, although marriage equality is the law of the land, those who object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds may refuse to serve LGBT couples or employ LGBT workers — and could claim exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. In the upcoming term, the court will decide whether cities, as a condition for receiving a government contract, may require a religious entity to comply with anti-discrimination laws.

This seems like a reference to the gay wedding case where a couple of activists asked a bunch of bakeries to bake them a cake with 'I support gay wedding' on it. Most of the bakeries said yes, one said 'I'll gladly sell you a premade cake but I won't make a custom one with a message I disagree with on it'. At which point they took them to court.

The last time affirmative action was before the court, a bare 4-3 majority (Justice Elena Kagan was recused and the late justice Antonin Scalia’s court replacement had not been seated), in which Ginsburg joined, upheld race-conscious university admissions policies as a way to further diversity. With a 6-3 conservative majority, the court could overturn decisions that ensure that racial minorities have equal access to elite academic institutions.

This just means that Harvard won't be allowed to discriminate against Asians.

A more conservative court could refashion the regulatory state by reviving the “nondelegation doctrine,” restricting Congress’s ability to delegate authority to administrative agencies. Such a shift would change government as we know it, preventing agency regulations aimed at combating climate change, delivering health care or addressing a global pandemic. It isn’t a stretch to say that decision-making along these lines would mean “most of Government is unconstitutional,” as Kagan has put it.

Delegation is dubious because it moves powers from elected representatives to appointed bureaucrats, many of whom were appointed by leftists.

These scenarios don’t even encompass the very real possibility that a 6-3 court could be called on to resolve a contested presidential election this year. If Trump’s nominee is confirmed, a third of the court will have been chosen by him, and they will be asked to ensure his victory.

With a bit of luck, a 6-3 court will stop the Democrats using postal and non-citizen votes to win.

For Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and the Senate’s Republican majority, the high court is key to securing broad power for which there is no democratic mandate. Faced with the prospect of Republican minority rule, many congressional Democrats have suggested that they’re keeping their options open, including the constitutionally permitted possibility of adding more justices to the court — “packing” it — to better reflect popular will. They may be too late: With a 6-3 conservative bloc in the offing, and the lower federal courts freshly stocked with Trump appointees, the Republicans’ own court-packing plan is already well underway.

It's ironic how they're against unelected people wielding power when they were appointed by Republicans but fine with it if they were appointed by Democrats. Also following the constitutional rules on appointments is not 'packing the court'.
 
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I think what they're concerned about is that the Democrats on the court won't be able to rely on Roberts voting with them half the time and swinging the result in their favor.
If they are concerned about Roberts then they are fucking retards who haven't been paying attention for the past decade.

Roberts has never ruled "With the right" on anything of importance..and legitimately rewrote the meaning of The American Care Act so he wouldn't have to overturn it. John Roberts is a failure of a "conservative"
 
If they are concerned about Roberts then they are fucking retards who haven't been paying attention for the past decade.

Roberts has never ruled "With the right" on anything of importance..and legitimately rewrote the meaning of The American Care Act so he wouldn't have to overturn it. John Roberts is a failure of a "conservative"
I maintain that I am 100% sure he is either paid off or blackmailed.
 
Sadly ture. As a Catholic I am really upset with my current Pope. I miss Benedict
In my old soyboys days i thought Francis was great. Now that I'm older and getting a better understanding of the state of things goddamn did us Catholics really did a self inflicted on ourselves with Francis. I'm sure hes a nice guy but this will be the end of the church when we needed a far stronger pope.
 
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Washington Post article on the implications of a 6:3 Republican appointee: Democrat appointee SCOTUS

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...920cd4-fe85-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html
https://archive.vn/0Ul7A
That is nothing but far left propaganda and they should be ashamed for publishing. Holy fucking hell. From "killing babies is of the utmost importance" to "border hoppers should count for congressional seats" to "affirmative action isn't discriminatory." I've said it before and I'll say it again, these "people" (and I use the term loosely as I honestly don't think it even applies anymore) truly live in an alternate version of reality.
 
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