President Donald Trump today nominated New Orleans native Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barrett graduated from St. Mary's Dominican High School in 1990, attended Rhodes College and Notre Dame law school.
A former clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a member of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago since 2017, Barrett has written conservative opinions that paint her as an opponent of Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act, and a supporter of the Second Amendment.
Her nomination to replace liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is expected to set off a heated confirmation process in the U.S. Senate.
The staunch conservative had become known to President Trump in large part after her bitter 2017 appeals court confirmation on a party-line vote included allegations that Democrats were attacking her Catholic faith. The president also interviewed her in 2018 for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Mr. Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh.
The president and his political allies are itching for another fight over Barrett’s faith, seeing it as a political windfall that would backfire on Democrats. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are viewed as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Biden, also Catholic, is trying to recapture.
While Democrats appear powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, they are seeking to use the process to weaken Mr. Trump’s reelection chances.
Barrett’s nomination could become a reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans so bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, has animated activists in both parties for decades. Now, with the seemingly decisive shift in the court’s ideological makeup, Democrats hope their voters will turn out in droves because of their frustration with the Barrett pick.
Mr. Trump has also increasingly embraced the high court — which he will have had an outsized hand in reshaping -– as an insurance policy in a close election.
Increases in mail, absentee and early voting brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have already led to a flurry of election litigation, and both the Trump and Biden campaigns have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once vote-counting begins. Mr. Trump has been open about tying his push to name a third justice to the court to a potentially drawn-out court fight to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.
“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday of the election, adding, “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”
Meanwhile, outside conservative groups are planning to spend more than $25 million to support Trump and his nominee. The Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth and the group Catholic Vote to help confirm Barrett, and the Trump campaign is expected to include the nomination in upcoming advertising.
