Photo courtesy of Lucy.Sanders.999, Wikipedia
Amy Coney Barrett has been sworn into the Supreme Court of the United States. She is a clear conservative vote on the Supreme Court, adding to the number of Republicans on the Court, tipping the scale to six members who were nominated by Republican presidents and three who were nominated by a Democratic president.
I do not agree with the fact that the president, whose current term is ending in this election despite the possibility of re-election, gets to nominate and confirm a new member of the Supreme Court. This is something that should be done after this election, even if Trump is re-elected.
I found it honestly comical that Republicans said that a Supreme Court seat should not be filled in an election year when President Barack Obama was leaving office.
“I want you to use my words against me,” South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said in a March 2016 Judiciary meeting. “If there’s a Republican president 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, and you could use my words against me and you’d be absolutely right.
“We’re setting a precedent here today, Republicans are, that in the last year, at least of a lame-duck eight-year term, I would say it’s going to be a four-year term, that you’re not going to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court based on what we’re doing here today. That’s going to be the new rule.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a February 2016 statement, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President,” according to TIME.
The hypocrisy that was shown by Republican leaders who then supported the nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated at the end of Trump’s first term.
I personally am not a fan of Amy Coney Barrett because she seems to be very conservative and religious, which outside of office and politics is perfectly fine, but I have some fears that the line of separation of church and state will be blurry for her. Barrett is publicly against abortion and gay marriage showed through legal remarks and decisions, which is part of the reason she is popular among conservatives.
I fear, along with so many people, that her confirmation could lead to the backtracking or rights for women and people of the LGBTQ+ community, a community that finally was able to legally get married in the U.S. in 2015. Many women fear that Barrett will undo so much of what the late feminist icon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had done in her 27 years serving in the Supreme Court, and for the years before she was even confirmed.
Things like the legalization of gay marriage, reproduction rights and so much more hang in the balance with the majority of the Supreme Court being held by Republicans. As a country, we have yet to see her in action on the Supreme Court, so maybe she will surprise us and not act as a force that may destroy the rights of many. I am hopeful she will be better than many people with similar views as I do expect.
Let us all hope that women still have choice and control over their own bodies, people in the LGBTQ+ community can still legally get married and the hard work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg stays intact.
agiampag@ramapo.edu
