Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett Has An Agenda

And the politicians appointing her have a bigger one.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett possesses the qualifications to sit on the highest court of the United States of America. She will almost certainly be confirmed by the end of the month, as Republicans ramrod her confirmation through as quickly as possible. And she is being disingenuous when she postures as an independent justice motivated only by adhering to the constitution and the rule of law. She is a willing political pawn.

Barrett appeared poised in her confirmation hearings, competently answering questions and coyly deflecting inquiries into how she might rule on potential cases surrounding abortion, healthcare, and the upcoming election. Several times she’s fallen back on her go-to claim she’ll follow ‘rule of law’ when pressed for a straight answer on controversial topics. She did so when asked about her 2017 paper Countering the Majoritarian Difficulty, in which she asserted Chief Justice Roberts ‘pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute’ in his 2012 ruling on the challenge to the Affordable Care Act. With some Democrats expressing concern she intends to end the ACA, she portrayed herself as an independent justice and explicitly claimed, “I don’t have any agenda.” The circumstances of her nomination suggest otherwise.

Early in her hearing, Barrett stated she expected her confirmation would be ‘excruciating,’ adding:

We knew that our lives would be combed over for any negative detail. We knew that our faith would be caricatured. We knew our family would be attacked.

Any reasonable person would anticipate the same, especially in a combative election year and on a day in which people queued for hours to cast their votes. In fact, it’s difficult to think of a more politically volatile time to accept a Supreme Court nomination given the heated rhetoric boiling in this election and the embroilment over the open hypocrisy of Republicans such as Ted Cruz, who protested in 2016:

It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.

Senator Cruz and many of his Republican colleagues shamelessly contradicted the fundamental values they insisted were self-evident four years ago by expediting Barrett’s confirmation in an election year. Their unabashed flip-flopping set the stage for a political showdown, even if the outcome is all but assured.

Any person accepting a nomination for a Supreme Court appointment tacitly agrees to have their private life pried apart in public. The proceedings arguably turned personal with Robert Bork’s failed nomination in 1987 and escalated into the cringe-worthy hearings of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, who was confirmed despite the specters of sexual assault and alcohol abuse haunting his nomination. Barrett’s hearings will probably see intense personal scrutiny due to the GOP’s brazen political gamesmanship and an election just three weeks away, with almost 12 million Americans already voting. Yet, she decided it was worth the invasion of her personal life, and we’re within our right to question her motivation. Why throw your hat into the ring in such a hyper-partisan situation, knowing your tenure in the Supreme Court might be marked with an asterisk as the last-second Hail Mary of a desperate, corrupt politician? Such a nominee must be dedicated to something they view as bigger than themselves and their loved ones. Such a risk to your family and your reputation must be tied to an agenda.

Barrett claims the ‘benefit’ of going through her confirmation is her commitment, “to the rule of law and the role of the Supreme Court and dispensing equal justice for all.” She comes across as reasonable in her speeches and writings, outside of the nagging possibility she questions the notion of precedent regarding Roe vs Wade. Despite her reasonability, many of the high ideals she espouses fall flat in the face of her political concessions.

In her efforts to avoid answering a question on whether she would recuse herself from a potential Trump vs Biden case to determine the presidency, Barrett concluded her deflection by saying:

I certainly hope that all members of the committee have more confidence in my integrity than to think that I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people.

Her statement is interesting because President Trump is on record stating the importance of having his justice in place to rule on an election he expects to be decided by a court battle:

I think it’s very important. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices. And I think the system is going to go very quickly. I’ll be submitting at 5 o’clock on Saturday, the name of the person I chose for this most important of all positions. And I think we should go very quickly…But I think it’s better if you go before the election because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam. The scam will be before the United States Supreme Court.

President Trump made the statement at a White House function on September 16th, eleven days before nominating Barrett. As Trump has publicly expressed the need for this confirmation to proceed quickly, it’s reasonable to assume Barrett is aware of the urgency of her nomination. Moreover, it’s reasonable to assume she understands the political implications if her hearing is delayed until after the election. She is complicit in President Trump and Majority Leader McConnell’s political move to appoint another conservative member to the Supreme Court before they lose their hold on the presidency and/or the senate. She is undeniably a part of their political game, a piece McConnell is moving on a political chessboard. Trump recently told journalist Bob Woodward, “You know what Mitch’s biggest thing is in the whole world? His judges.” Judge Barrett is McConnell’s most-prized game piece, and she knows it. She will continue to deny it in her hearings, but she is the very definition of a pawn being used for political gain.

To be fair to Barrett, she didn’t say she wouldn’t allow herself to be used as a pawn. She said she hopes people don’t think she’d allow herself to be ‘used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people.’ However, during Tuesday’s questioning, she was asked whether she would recuse herself from hearing a case that would decide the election for the American people, and she refused to provide a straight answer. She refused, knowing her appointment smacks of a quid pro quo in the making, as President Trump stresses the need to confirm her before the election in case he loses.

Already she seems to have fallen in line with those who can make her a Supreme Court justice when she danced around Senator Feinstein’s question about whether a president can unilaterally delay an election. Barrett’s response doesn’t hold up with her earlier claims of rule of law:

Well, Senator, if that question ever came before me, I’d need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process.

One would think Barrett would be familiar with Article 1, Section 4 of the United States Constitution giving Congress, the House and Senate, the power to set the date for elections, and not the president.

The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

For someone who repeatedly tells the public she’s only here to apply the law, her need to go through an ‘opinion-writing process’ is troubling. This is not an opinion. This is explicitly outlined in the Constitution, and you don’t need to hear arguments to figure it out.

And this is what bothers me about Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, the disconnect between who she tells us she is and who she appears to be. She claims she has no agenda yet she accepts a rushed appointment from a dishonest president in a political powder keg of a year that will inflict a personal toll on her and her family and possibly place her in a compromised position come November. It smells like a backroom deal in which Barrett willingly concedes some of her integrity to a famously corrupt businessman for a court appointment. We don’t know why she’s willing to do it under these circumstances, and, worse; we don’t get a say in it.

She tells us she is not a pawn in a Machiavellian scheme to give Trump the presidency in a court battle. Yet, she is a pawn put into play by the Machiavelli of the Senate to do his judicial bidding. When she was given the opportunity to confirm she would do the right thing if she were put into the compromised position of anointing the man who appointed her, she punted.

She hides behind her professed dedication to the rule of law but completely whiffs when asked a basic question about the constitutionality of Trump’s desire to delay the November 3rd election. Her predecessor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would not have failed to note the letter of the law of the Constitution. She would have known Trump cannot delay the election. He can only hope to discredit it, which is why Trump needs Amy Coney Barrett on the court and on his side.

Barrett is no Ginsburg, but I can live with that. Barrett is also no independent justice motivated only by adhering to the constitution and the rule of law. And anyone truly committed to making America great again should not be willing to live with that.