How Do You Solve a Problem Like Amy Barrett?

by Mary W. Maxwell, LLB

I propose that President Donald Trump and the new US Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, volunteer to cancel the confirmation hearings that began today.

Article I, section 2 of the Constitution says of the president:

“He ... shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States....”

I realize that there is no requirement for this president to “sacrifice” his chance to use the 53-47 majority of his party in the Senate to rush through a Supreme Court nomination. He can do it, but it seems so wrong.

The nation deserves nine great persons on the top bench. If Amy Barrett is great, she will still be great a few months from now, or even a few years from now, and could be confirmed then.

If Barrett and/or Trump would make the principled gesture of holding off, since the matter is being treated almost exclusively as a partisan contest, they would win hearts and minds. Is that counter-intuitive? It shouldn’t be.

Those two persons would be sticking up for the spirit of the law. They would be sticking up for the majesty of the court. They would be sticking up for Americans’ right to participate joyfully in the matter. We can’t really participate if there is a looming deadline, can we? After January 20, 2021 there will be no pressure.

Kick “Parties” Out of the Supreme Court

Parties do not belong on any bench, state or federal. When a case comes before a judge, he or she should attend to it in a way that would not reveal what “Party” he or she belongs to.

I realize that statement may sound startling to some. But it’s really very unstartling. What wiggle room is there for any judge to do anything other than apply the law?

I am a member of the Republican Party and the Federalist Society and hold conservative positions on most issues. Amy Barrett is a conservative Constitutionalist. Well, that’s nice. But couldn’t such a person win a senate confirmation regardless of which party is “in power”?

Democrats can be conservative, and Democrats can be constitutionalist. You’d never guess that from listening to the media, but I can remember it being a common fact.

Today the mainstream media is positioning the whole thing as a fight between the 53 and the 47. You can predict that newsmen will be running around trying to find a “story” about any of the 53 being susceptible to “defection.” (Or about any of the 47 crossing the aisle -- on some strictly selfish calculation.)

How disgusting. How destructive of our beautiful Res Publica.

Come on, Judge Barrett, rescue us from this errant development. You wouldn’t be hurting Republicans one little bit, by asking for a postponement.

You’d be reviving good old-fashioned idealism, something this nation is hungry for. Surely you’d go down in history for that!