Trump selects Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg Supreme Court vacancy | 2020-09-26 11:27:15 (Visits: 353 Times) |  | | This image provided by Rachel Malehorn shows Judge Amy Coney Barrett in Milwaukee, on Aug. 24, 2018.Rachel Malehorn, rachelmallehorn.smugmug.com | via AP
NBC News PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 25 20205:48 PM EDTUPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
President Donald Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, NBC News has learned. Trump’s announcement will come just 38 days before voters will decide whether he will hold the White House for a second term, and is bound to have profound reverberations on all three branches of government.Barrett'
selection will come just a week after Ginsburg died from complications due to cancer found on her pancreas.President Donald Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, NBC News has learned. Trump is expected to make an official announcement at an event planned for 5 p.m. ET Saturday.Barrett is a
48-year-old federal appeals court judge favored by social conservatives and the religious right. Her confirmation to replace Ginsburg, a feminist icon who sat on the bench for 27 years, would solidify a 6-3 majority for Republican appointees on the bench for the foreseeable future. Trump’s announcement will come just 38 days before voters will decide whether he will hold the White House for a second term, and is bound to have profound reverberations on all three branches of government. Read more: Barrett nomination ensures epic abortion fight in election’s final days Supreme Court to face major cases on Obamacare and religion in coming term A Supreme Court confirmation before Election Day would be quick, but not unprecedented Barrett’s selection will come just a week after Ginsburg died from complications due to cancer found on her pancreas. She will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery next week. Ginsburg, who had in the past publicly sparred with the president, said in a statement issued while she was dying that it was her “most fervent wish” that she not be replaced until after Election Day. That comment, and the precedent Republicans set in 2016 when they opposed former President Barack Obama’s nominee to the bench, prompted a battle between Democrats and Republicans over whether a vote on a new nominee would take place before Nov. 3.Barrett has long been anticipated as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court, and it came as a surprise to some when Trump passed over her in favor of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy. Trump reportedly said at the time that he was saving Barrett for Ginsburg. Trump has repeatedly pressed for a vote ahead of Election Day, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said there is more than enough time to do so, despite his 2016 posture that prohibited a vote on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.Trump has said that his desire to have aabconservative justice confirmed before the election stems from his belief that the outcome of the race will depend on the Supreme Court, as it did in the 2000 case Bush v. Gore. That prospect, and a coming clash at the court over the legality of the Affordable Care Act, have further inflamed the confirmation fight. Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have blasted the president’s decision to nominate a justice. During a speech in Philadelphia, Biden said of Ginsburg that “we should heed her final call to us, not as a personal service to her, but as a service to the country, our country, at a crossroads.”But it appears Republicans will have the votes they need. Two moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, came out in opposition to holding a vote, but failed to attract other defectors. McConnell needs just 50 of the Senate’s 53 Republicans to stay in line, given Vice President Mike Pence’s ability to cast a tie breaking vote. Any selection Trump could have made was likely to be contentious, but Barrett could prove especially so. Barrett, whom Trump appointed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has already started to spur a cultural battle over the place of religion on the high court, and the future of abortion rights in the United States. Democrats are worried that Barrett’s deeply held Catholic faith will bias her in cases that could cause the court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion. They have pointed to Barrett’s comments to students suggesting that their legal careers were a means to “building the kingdom of God,” and a 1998 paper in which Barrett explored whether orthodox Catholic judges should recuse themselves from cases concerning the death penalty. In the paper, Barrett referred to aborted fetuses as “unborn victims.”Barrett wrote in the article, co-authored with a professor while in law school, that the Catholic church’s opposition to the death penalty provided a reason for federal judges to recuse themselves |
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