Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings open with focus on health care

Both Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged that there is little chance that Barrett’s nomination will fail to be approved by the committee.

“This is probably not about persuading each other, unless something dramatic happens,” Graham said in his opening statement. He said that all of the committee’s Democrats would vote no, and all of its Republicans would vote yes.

“Why hold this hearing? A lot of people on our side say, just ram it through. I hear it a lot. That’s why I don’t listen to the radio much anymore,” he said.

Graham said the purpose of the hearings was for Americans to weigh Barrett’s qualifications themselves.

“Judge for yourself. Is this person qualified? Is she as qualified as Sotomayor and Kagan? I think so,” Graham said, referring to President Barack Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

If confirmed, Barrett would be the sixth conservative justice on the nine-judge Supreme Court, and would likely push the panel further to the right on a range of issues touching on business, guns, reproductive rights and other matters.

The 48-year-old would be President Donald Trump’s third appointee to the high court, after Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Barrett has been a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for close to three years and has served for nearly two decades as a law professor at Notre Dame Law School, where she graduated at the top of her class.

The hearings came just weeks after two Republican members of the committee, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, contracted the coronavirus after attending Barrett’s White House nomination ceremony last month.

Lee, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Oct. 1, attended Monday’s hearing in person and did not wear a mask while asking questions. He previously said that he had obtained permission from the office of the attending physician to do so and isolated for 10 days.

Tillis and several other senators attended the hearings virtually.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said the hearings were a “microcosm” of the Trump administration’s failure to contain the coronavirus.

“The whole thing, just like Trump, is an irresponsible botch,” he said.

In addition to health care, the senators also focused on the propriety of holding nomination hearings so close to Election Day, particularly given some recent comments by Trump.

Trump has said he wants his nominee to be confirmed in time to resolve any election-related legal disputes.

“You cannot feel good about a president cheapening this historic moment,” Sen Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/12/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-confirmation-hearings-begin.html