Barrett’s speedy elevation from little-known Indiana law professor to the nation’s highest court is set to drive the court to the right for a generation or longer. It's the fulfillment of a decades-long effort by conservatives to remake the federal bench that kicked into high gear after President Trump was elected, says The Associated Press.
Even before Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Trump was campaigning for reelection on his record of confirming more than 200 federal judges during his first term, fulfilling a generational aim of conservative legal activists.
“Today’s nomination is the capstone of a more than four-year process where the president seized upon the issue, stayed focused, and called attention to a small bench of very talented people who he could put on the Supreme Court,” says Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society.
“Today’s nomination is the capstone of a more than four-year process where the president seized upon the issue, stayed focused, and called attention to a small bench of very talented people who he could put on the Supreme Court,” says Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society.
Within weeks of Trump’s victory in 2016, incoming White House counsel Don McGahn, Leo and several other attorneys started drawing up lists of potential nominees for federal judicial vacancies.
Barrett, a former clerk to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was then a law professor at Notre Dame who wasn't well known in political circles in Indiana and was almost unheard of nationally. But she found herself on the list of potential picks for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in large part thanks to McGahn, a fellow Notre Dame alum. McGahn knew Barrett from conservative legal circles, like Leo’s influential Federalist Society, and talked her up to the Indiana congressional delegation.
Barrett faced a bruising nomination battle for the appellate seat in 2017 that caught the attention of Trump, who was impressed with her ability to keep her cool under critical questioning by Democratic senators, says AP.
On the 7th Circuit, Barrett has weighted in on cases involving hot-button issues including abortion, gun rights, immigration and campus sexual assault.
Although Barrett hasn't ruled directly on abortion as a judge, she's cast votes signaling opposition to rulings that struck down abortion-related restrictions, says Reuters. Abortion rights groups have expressed concern that Barrett could help overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
Barrett indicated support for expansive gun rights in a 2019 opinion dissenting from a 7th Circuit ruling on gun ownership by people convicted of serious crimes, Reuters says.
And Barrett wrote a 2019 ruling on behalf of a unanimous three-judge 7th Circuit panel making it easier for male college students accused of sexual misconduct to challenge the way campus tribunals handle their cases.
In June, Barrett said in a dissenting opinion she would have let one of Trump’s hardline immigration policies go forward in Illinois.
While Trump said he had a list of five finalists for the Supreme Court seat, he never interviewed anyone else for the job.
Democrats appear to be powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, but they're seeking to use the process to weaken Trump’s reelection chances.
And Trump sees his outsize role in reshaping the court as an insurance policy in a close election, says AP.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday detailed on Fox News the timeline for his committee’s action on Barrett’s nomination. Hearings are to begin Oct. 12 and the nomination is to be reported out of committee on Oct. 22.
"Then it will be up to Sen. [Mitch] McConnell as to what to do with the nomination once it comes out of committee,” Graham said.
Barrett, age 48, and her husband, Jesse Barrett, a former federal prosecutor, have seven children, all under 20, including two adopted from Haiti and a young son with Down syndrome. Barrett would be the only justice on the current court not to have received her law degree from Harvard or Yale.
Here is the text of Barrett’s remarks when President Trump announced her nomination Saturday, as transcribed by The New York Times.
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