The Supreme 180

As expected, Donald Trump selected Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died over a week ago. 

Selecting Barrett to replace Ginsburg is a 180 degree shift from everything Ginsburg stood for and fought for in her long legal and judicial career. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked to expand rights under the Constitution, rights for women and people of color and the LGBTQ community and more. 

Amy Coney Barrett is an originalist, a fancy way of saying that if the Constitution does specifically say something is a right, then it ain't so. In short, instead of expanding rights for those who would otherwise be disenfranchised in American society, Barrett takes a narrower view. 

What is at stake with Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court? 

Health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions will go away. Donald Trump is still seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court and with a conservative majority on the court, the likelihood of ACA being struck down all or in part is more likely. Millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions.who rely on the ACA for health insurance will no longer have that coverage.

A woman's right to have control over her own body will be at risk. The raison d'etre for why Evangelicals have sucked so hard on Donald Trump's ass for the last 4 years is to build a sufficiently conservative majority on the Supreme Court to either roll back or at least gut Roe Vs. Wade. Amy Coney Barrett has gone on the record to say that the Supreme Court ruling on Roe Vs. Wade was "erroneous"; her placement on the bench will give Barrett a chance to "correct" that error. 

LGBTQ rights will be in danger. Ginsburg led the way in decisions that gave same sex couples the right to marry, for transgender people to not be fired from their jobs, for gay people to not be denied the right to live where they choose and so on. Legal challenges to this expansion of rights to the LGBTQ community making their way back to the Supreme Court will find a sympathetic ear in Barrett. 

You will more likely be shot in the face. Efforts by cities and states to institute some form of gun control have faced continual legal challenges in the courts. Cases making their way to the Supreme Court have ruled in favor of cities and states to curb the availability of guns with  Ruth Bader Ginsburg leading the way. On the other hand, Amy Coney Barrett has questioned the constitutionality of such bans.  

We may get four more years of Donald Trump. Li'l Donnie has been doing his damnedest to sow discord and doubt over the election process with wild, unfounded accusations of fraud. And he has his attorney general Bill Barr promigating the same bullshit as well. All this sets the stage for Trump to make any number of legal challenges to voting results that do not have him as the winner. If these challenges make it to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett tilts the court in a conservative direction that would support Trump. See what happened in 2000 when the Supreme Court weighed in the deadlocked US presidential election; a conservative majority handed the White House to George W Bush. So there is a precedent for this sort of thing.

Now I will admit some of the consequence of Amy Coney Barrett being on the Supreme Court as I outlined above may verge on hyperbole. I mean, I'm obviously pushing some buttons with "You will more likely be shot in the face".  

But the long terms consequences of Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court feel very real. Barrett’s views on abortion, the ACA, gun rights, sexual assault, immigration and more are no mystery. They are known and well documented. And they not only run a complete 180 degree counter to the woman she is replacing, they also run counter to what the majority of the voting public wants. 

Which brings us to the short term consequences. We've got a nominee who may get a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court on a Republican majority vote, a vote that will take place mere days before an election when Republican's may lose their hold on the Senate and the Presidency. We have a political party dictating judicial policy for the next generation potentially on their way out the door.  

We have a political party that is determined to have its own way no matter what. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham were asserting that the GOP had to votes to confirm Trump's nominee, even before any knew who Trump's nominee would be. 

And there is the rampant hypocrisy of how McConnell stole President Obama's Supreme Court nominee on the pretext that a Supreme Court justice should not be replaced in an election year, that the voters should have a say in such a selection.  2020 provides a replication of the events of 2016 and McConnell can't get the next justice confirmed fast enough.  

This actually goes out of the people's hands even further when you consider how Amy Coney Barrett wound up in front of Trump as a Supreme Court nominee in the first place. Like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh before her, Barrett is a product of the Federalist Society, a conservative group with a long term plan of grooming people right out of law school with an eye on future judicial appointments including the Supreme Court to promote conservative positions in the judiciary. The Federalist Society does all the heavy lifting on vetting potential nominees to the Federal court system. All Trump does is pick the one he likes best. He's gone on record as citing nominees for looking like they are out of "central casting". Gorsuch with his serious business man vibe, Kavanaugh with his suburban dad look.

There is zero doubt in my mind that Trump went down the list of potential nominees from the Federalist Society, landed on Barrett's photo, thought she looks pretty for a middle aged mom of 7 and decided to "cast" her as his next pick for the Supreme Court.  

To sum up, Amy Coney Barrett is a judicial nominee whose views run counter to the majority of Americans selected by a non elected, non government body, nominated by an exceedingly unpopular president and to be confirmed by a partisan vote.  

The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is not on a 180 degree turn from the legacy of her predecessor but is also a full 180 from democracy itself.

Saikrishna Prakash, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, takes issues with such predictions of doom.  Prof. Prakash wrote, "Almost everyone will wonder what she will do on the court, with predictions of doom and gloom the loudest. Everyone forgets that justices can surprise their nominating presidents, with Justice David Souter, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch as recent examples. And people overlook the many justices who actually disappoint their appointers, like Justice William Brennan. Precisely how a Justice Barrett will surprise her critics and fans is unknown." 

Personally, I think this is wishful thinking on the professor's part. I remember trying to reassure my nervous wife back in November 2016 that perhaps Donald Trump would surprise everyone once he was in office. I didn't believe it but I fervently held on to that hope. It was a hope that was quickly and decisively disavowed. 

I have a bad feeling that in Amy Coney Barrett, what we see is what we're going to get.