The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left a space no other justice can fill, but Republicans were determined to ram through the first nominee they could to do it within just two hours after the announcement of her death. Judge Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by President Donald Trump the day after Ginsburg’s funeral, and her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee is already underway.
BREAKING: 88 of Amy Coney Barrett’s faculty colleagues at Notre Dame have released a letter saying she should withdraw from consideration for the Supreme Court. https://t.co/ujZ6zMFY6d
— Jonathan Alter (@jonathanalter) October 13, 2020
Fellow faculty members of Judge Barrett’s acknowledged the great achievements that Barrett has made in an open letter, but they followed their congratulations with advice that their colleague most likely didn’t want to hear. They asked that she resign from the nomination, not because of her prior statements on the unconstitutionality of the Affordable Care Act or the “brutality” of reproductive rights, but for three very important other reasons.
‘We congratulate you on your nomination to the United States Supreme Court. An appointment to the Court is the crowning achievement of a legal career and speaks to the commitments you have made throughout your life. And while we are not pundits, from what we read your confirmation is all but assured.
‘That is why it is vital that you issue a public statement calling for a halt to your nomination process until after the November presidential election.’
"Every American must understand that with this nomination, equal justice under law is at stake. Our voting rights are at stake. Workers' rights are at stake," Sen. Kamala Harris says at the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. https://t.co/mUCa1XcbGy pic.twitter.com/Gp5folWn8Q
— ABC News (@ABC) October 12, 2020
They began by saying that her nomination is an obvious power grab by Republicans that disenfranchises voters, who should have the right to have a say in a lifelong nomination to the Supreme Court, particularly when voting is already well underway. While they acknowledged that the timing is not the fault of Judge Barrett, they pleaded with her to consider how unfair her confirmation will be to voters across the country.
‘First, voting for the next president is already underway. According to the United States Election Project (https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html), more than seven million people have already cast their ballots, and millions more are likely to vote before election day. The rushed nature of your nomination process, which you certainly recognize as an exercise in raw power politics, may effectively deprive the American people of a voice in selecting the next Supreme Court justice.’
If this feels personal, that’s because it is. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a personal hero for me and for millions of other women. The most fitting tribute to her is to stop Donald Trump and Senate Republicans from stealing her Supreme Court seat.https://t.co/JQxqeyIil4
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 13, 2020
Her colleagues, as well as legal scholars everywhere, feel the weight of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and said that her final wishes to be replaced by a new president after the 2020 elections was her most fervent hope, according to Ginsburg’s granddaughter, who recorded her words. Out of respect for the contribution of Ginsburg to the law and the country, Barrett’s Notre Dame teaching colleagues said that the right thing to do would be to step down.
‘Next, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish was that her seat on the court remain open until a new president was installed. At your nomination ceremony at the White House, you praised Justice Ginsburg as “a woman of enormous talent and consequence, whose life of public service serves as an example to us all.” Your nomination just days after Ginsburg’s death was unseemly and a repudiation of her legacy.’
Red States began late but now dominate the Covid charts.
— Anil (@anilvohra69) October 13, 2020
Finally, they wrote that Barrett’s nomination comes at such a divided and critical time in the United States that it should be her responsibility to the country to try to quell some of the anxiety over the 2020 presidential elections, the COVID-19 crisis, and the social uprisings over police brutality. In other words, they asked her to put the good of the country over her own ambitions for the Supreme Court.
‘Finally, your nomination comes at a treacherous moment in the United States. Our politics are consumed by polarization, mistrust, and fevered conspiracy theories. Our country is shaken by pandemic and economic suffering. There is violence in the streets of American cities. The politics of your nomination, as you surely understand, will further inflame our civic wounds, undermine confidence in the court, and deepen the divide among ordinary citizens, especially if you are seated by a Republican Senate weeks before the election of a Democratic president and congress.’
White supremacist extremists will remain the deadliest domestic terror threat to the US, according to the Department of Homeland Security's first annual homeland threat assessment https://t.co/mQ62LuKMAK
— CNN (@CNN) October 12, 2020
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