https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/amy-coney-barrett-ginsburg-scotus-future.html
Mark Joseph Stern reports for Slate:
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The consensus among legal and political analysts is that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump placed on a federal appeals court in 2017, is the leading candidate to fill Ginsburg’s seat. Barrett gained fame during her confirmation hearing after Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein made inappropriate comments about the judge’s devout Catholic faith. She is a hardcore conservative, but that description doesn’t quite capture how radically her jurisprudence differs from Ginsburg’s. The justice viewed the Bill of Rights and civil rights acts as generous guarantees of human dignity that must be read expansively to achieve their purpose. By contrast, Barrett’s view of the law is fundamentally cruel. During her three years on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett has either written or joined a remarkable number of opinions that harm unpopular and powerless individuals who rely on the judiciary to safeguard their rights.
Faced with two plausible readings of a law, fact, or precedent, Barrett always seems to choose the harsher, stingier interpretation. Can job applicants sue employers whose policies have a disproportionately deleterious impact on older people? Barrett said no. Should courts halt the deportation of an immigrant who faced torture at home? Barrett said no. Should they protect refugees denied asylum on the basis of xenophobic prejudice? Barrett said no. Should they shield prisoners from unjustified violence by correctional officers? Barrett said no. Should minors be allowed to terminate a pregnancy without telling their parents if a judge has found that they’re mature enough to make the decision? Barrett said no. Should women be permitted to obtain an abortion upon discovering a severe fetal abnormality? Barrett said no.
There is no question that, if confirmed, Barrett would cast the fifth vote to either hollow out Roe v. Wade or overturn it altogether. Similarly, there is no doubt that Barrett would dramatically expand the Second Amendment, invalidating gun control measures around the country. It’s quite possible, perhaps even likely, that within a year of her confirmation, Americans will be forbidden from terminating a pregnancy in 21 states—but permitted to purchase assault weapons and carry firearms in public in every state.
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Read the rest of Mark’s article at the link.
Judge Barrett sounds like someone who could have trained in anti-humanitarian, anti-social, anti-due-process, anti-immigrant judging by Billy the Bigot on the BIA. She certainly fits the model of an unqualified far right attivist.
And what of the other leading contender, Judge Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit. In addition to being a reliable right-wing zealot (she voted to uphold the GOP anti-democracy scheme to overrule the people of Florida and disenfranchise former convicts), she is a Cuban American from Florida, a state where Trump and Biden are running neck and neck. Anybody who thinks today’s Court isn’t “politicized” has been living under a rock!
Daniel Goldberg, Legal Director of the Alliance for Justice (“AFJ”) tells us about everything we need to know about Lagoa:
Daniel Goldberg, legal director of the liberal Alliance for Justice, was critical of Lagoa’s record, saying she is a judge “who has showed contempt for our democracy.” Goldberg said he has “no doubt that she will meet Donald Trump’s litmus test” for a Supreme Court nominee and support his pledge to overturn Roe and the Affordable Care Act.
If you don’t want more unqualified judges with cruel, perverted, and unjust visions of America, and contempt for democracy and the humanity of “the other” in society to be deciding your future and the future of your children and grandchildren, then you had better get out the vote for Biden. Otherwise, your future is likely to look like America’s Jim Crow past!
PWS
09-21-20