The US Supreme Court is often the last say on major cases that impact public life. So what kind of justice might President Trump's nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett be?
From abortion to gun rights, here's a look at what she's said about major issues in the past.
On her judicial philosophy
Speaking in 2016 at Jacksonville University's Public Policy Institute, she told students judges should not be appointed based on policy preferences. "We should be putting people on the court who want to apply the Constitution."
In her opening statement on 12 October, she tied herself once more to the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who she worked for as a clerk.
"His judicial philosophy was straightforward: A judge must apply the law as written, not as the judge wishes it were. Sometimes that approach meant reaching results that he did not like.
"But as he put it in one of his best known opinions, that is what it means to say we have a government of laws, not of men."
She added that "courts have a vital responsibility to enforce the rule of law" but they are not meant to "solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life".
"The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people."
On abortion
For many, Judge Barrett's views on abortion (and the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected the procedure nationally) are at the centre of their support or condemnation of her nomination.
She has not ruled specifically on abortion before, but she has reviewed two abortion restrictions cases while on the appeals court.
Judge Barrett voted in favour of a law that would have mandated doctors to inform the parents of a minor seeking an abortion, with no exceptions. She also called for a state law that sought to ban abortions related to sex, race, disability or life-threatening health conditions to be reheard.
She was also one of five appeals judges who argued that an Indiana state law requiring burial or cremation for foetal remains may have been constitutional.
She wrote in a 2013 Texas Law Review article that the "public response to controversial cases like Roe reflects public rejection of the proposition that [precedent] can declare a permanent victor in a divisive constitutional struggle rather than desire that the precedent remain forever unchanging".
"Court watchers embrace the possibility of overruling, even if they may want it to be the exception rather than the rule."
Talking about abortion in 2016 at Jacksonville University, Judge Barrett said she did not think "abortion or the right to abortion would change".
"I think some of the restrictions would change," she said. "The question is how much freedom the court is willing to let states have in regulating abortion."
On precedent
Judge Barrett's abortion views aside, perhaps the more important is the question of how she views precedent - and what that might mean for Roe v Wade and other established rulings.
"Does the Court act lawlessly - or at least questionably - when it overrules precedent?" she wrote in a 2013 Texas Law Review article.
"I tend to agree with those who say that a justice's duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks is clearly in conflict with it."
On her faith
A devout Catholic, Judge Barrett has been asked about her faith as it relates to her work during past confirmation hearings.
She has been asked in particular about a 1998 article she co-wrote with a professor about Catholic judges.
She wrote that Catholic judges are "obliged by oath, professional commitment and the demands of citizenship to enforce the death penalty", while also being obliged "to adhere to their church's teaching on moral matters".
During her 2017 confirmation hearing for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Judge Barrett said she still "vehemently" believes that if there is a conflict between a judge's "personal conviction and that judge's duty under rule of law, that it is never ever permissible for that judge to follow their personal convictions in the decision of a case rather than what the law requires".
In the same hearing, she said she is a "faithful Catholic", but stressed her affiliation "would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge".
"I would decide cases according to rule of law, beginning to end, and in the rare circumstance that might ever arise - I can't imagine one sitting here now - where I felt that I had some conscientious objection to the law, I would recuse," the judge said.
"I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law."
On healthcare
Another major issue for voters is how a Justice Coney Barrett might rule on the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law that brought insurance coverage to millions.
The Supreme Court is to rule on the legality of that law in November.
In a 2017 law review essay, Judge Barrett criticised Chief Justice John Roberts's 2012 opinion on the act's individual mandate (which imposed a penalty for anyone who did not sign up for insurance).
She wrote: "Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.
"He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power; had he treated the payment as the statute did - as a penalty - he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress's commerce power."
On guns
There's just one ruling on the right to bear arms we can reference from Judge Barrett's record, but it is a controversial one.
Gun rights supporters have praised her 37-page dissent in the case of a man who pleaded guilty to mail fraud, served his time and then challenged state laws that barred him as a felon from owning a gun again.
Saying "history is consistent with common sense", she argued that the government can only prohibit individuals shown to be dangerous from possessing guns.
"Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons," she wrote.
"Nor have the parties introduced any evidence that founding-era legislatures imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right; such restrictions applied to civic rights like voting and jury service, not to individual rights like the right to possess a gun."
Speaking about her dissent to students at Hillsdale College last year, Judge Barrett said while it "sounds kind of radical to say felons can have firearms", she found no "blanket authority" to take guns away from Americans without showing the individual was a danger.
Source: BBC News, Staff, October 12, 2020
Amy Coney Barrett winning Supreme Court seat would ‘be the final puzzle piece’ in overturning marriage equality, lawyers warn
As the Senate Judiciary Committee began the process of confirming Coney Barrett on Monday (October 12), LGBT+ campaigners have reasserted their opposition.
They warned that her appointment would effectively abolish the fragile consensus in favour of LGBT+ equality on the court, by replacing Ginsburg’s reliably-liberal vote with a stalwart conservative who has a lengthy problematic track record.
A report by Human Rights Campaign released shortly ahead of the Senate hearings warns that Coney Barrett has “demonstrated hostility toward LGBTQ rights in her words and rulings”, signalling her closeness to the late anti-LGBT+ conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who opposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
Amy Coney Barrett called trans women ‘physiological males’
As detailed in the report, Amy Coney Barrett has previously misgendered transgender people, referring to a transgender women as “physiological males” as she questioned their basic rights.
Coney Barrett has also questioned landmark marriage equality ruling Obergefell v Hodges, which brought same-sex weddings to all 50 states, and signed a 2015 letter stating her support for “marriage and family founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman”.
She took an opposite view from the court on whether anti-discrimination protections extend to transgender Americans, claiming in a 2016 lecture that it’s a “strain on the text” to reach that interpretation.
The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), meanwhile, cited her “multiple ties to fervently anti-transgender organizations” including the Heritage Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom, the latter of which has argued in court that has argued it should be legal for employers to fire workers simply because they are transgender.
TLDEF executive director Andy Marra said: “Amy Coney Barrett’s judicial record and public statements are clear. She has expressed opposition to basic protections for transgender people, and sought to undermine decades of case law protecting fair employment and access to health care.
“Judge Barrett has also misgendered transgender girls and women and perhaps most disturbingly, she has targeted transgender children. None of this comes as a shock when you consider her affiliations.
“Judge Barrett has cozied up to groups that fan the flames of anti-transgender rhetoric and aspire for transgender people to simply not exist.
“Judge Barrett’s record shows her to be a threat to the safety and well-being of transgender people and our families. Today, we remain steadfast in our opposition to her nomination for our nation’s highest court.”
Supreme Court nominee ‘poses a clear threat’ to LGBT+ rights
HRC president Alphonso David said: “Every American should be concerned by this nomination and its implications on the progress of equality for LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups.
“This upcoming term and beyond, we expect crucial cases about the future of LGBTQ rights to appear before the Court. Amy Coney Barrett poses a clear threat to any progress we can expect to see from the Court and her record shows she will take every opportunity to oppose us and scale back our rights. We vigorously oppose her nomination.”
HRC added: “Judge Barrett poses a direct threat to the constitutional rights of LGBTQ community and all Americans, and she should not be confirmed for a pivotal vote on the highest court in the land, especially under such extraordinary and troubling circumstances.”
Just one day after the election, the court will begin to hear a case that could drastically impact LGBT+ rights, as it decides whether taxpayer-funded foster care agencies should be permitted to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, two of the court’s existing conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, recently launched a broadside against equal marriage, signalling a desire to revisit the court’s 2015 ruling on the issue.
Source: Pink News, Nick Duffy, October 12, 2020
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