Burr, Tillis vote to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court
Senate Republicans confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday evening, giving President Donald Trump a third appointee to the nine-member court and doing so eight days before the Nov. 3 election.
No Democrat voted for Barrett, who was confirmed 52-48. Republicans, including Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, provided all 52 yes votes. Barrett will fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September.
Barrett, 48, took the constitutional oath from Justice Clarence Thomas in a televised event at the White House on Monday night, and will take a judicial oath from Chief Justice John Roberts in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, according to the court. She can begin work Tuesday.
“I think Judge Amy Coney Barrett is going to go down in history as one of the great justices on the Supreme Court,” Tillis said in a seven-minute speech Monday on the Senate floor. “It is a shame that this is even a divided decision. In a less political time than we find ourselves today, I suspect that she’d have unanimous support in the Senate much like Justice Ginsburg when she came before the Senate.”
Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted for her, said he had Barrett sign two pocket copies of the Constitution for his young granddaughters. Tillis included a short message with her signature: “Dream big.”
Burr said he was “pleased” to support Barrett.
“Judge Barrett has proven to be an exceptionally qualified and well-respected jurist. Throughout her distinguished career, she has demonstrated that she will faithfully serve as an impartial judge to defend the Constitution and rule of law,” Burr said in a statement after the vote. “I am pleased to support Judge Barrett’s confirmation today and I am confident she will serve Americans with ability and integrity.”
Barrett, a former law professor at the University of Notre Dame, has been an appellate court judge in the 7th U.S. Circuit since 2017, when she was nominated by Trump. Barrett is a mother of seven, including two adopted children from Haiti.
A devout Catholic, she is “unashamedly pro-life,” as Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, put it during her committee hearing. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said Monday that Barrett was “the most openly pro-life judicial nominee to the Supreme Court in my lifetime.”
Barrett’s confirmation gives conservatives a 6-3 edge on the high court and has fueled concerns from Democrats and liberals that the court is now more likely to strike down the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights.
An appeal of a North Carolina voting case is currently before the court. State Republicans and the Trump campaign are trying to keep Nov. 6 as the final day that absentee by-mail ballots can be received, as is currently state law. The state board of elections, in a settlement, moved the date to Nov. 13.
What’s at stake
The court is scheduled to hear a case on the Affordable Care Act on Nov. 10, just a week after the election, which itself could end up before the justices.
Trump has predicted the election “will end up in the Supreme Court.”
In June, Burr and Tillis signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 law that allowed women the right to seek an abortion nationwide.
Trump said it was “certainly possible” that the court, with Barrett, could overturn its decision in Roe and return abortion law to the states.
Tillis said during his Oct. 1 debate with Democratic U.S. Senate challenger Cal Cunningham that “nobody knows how she is going to rule.” Cunningham said American women have relied on that precedent and said he believes “a woman’s choice is a woman’s right.”
Barrett, as is customary for nominees, declined to answer numerous questions about the case and its precedent during her hearings.
“Our religious freedoms are at stake, our Second Amendment rights are at stake. We do have people that want activist judges. I don’t want an activist judge period, not for a conservative cause or a liberal cause,” Tillis said during his floor speech.
Cunningham, who is in a tight race with Tillis for a seat that could determine control of the U.S. Senate in January, said Tillis “placed partisanship over both his own statement of principles and the needs of North Carolinians.”
“By rushing through a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court during an election, while failing to deliver the COVID relief that our people need, Senator Tillis shows us again that he works for Washington and not the people of North Carolina,” Cunningham said in a statement. “By voting to confirm a judge who has expressed open hostility to the Affordable Care Act two weeks before the ACA is on the court docket, Senator Tillis is striving to do through the courts what he failed to do in the Senate — take away health care from North Carolinians, even now that we’re in a pandemic.”
Election year confirmation
The Republican-held Senate refused to hold hearings on President Barack Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland, arguing that it was an election year and the primary process had begun. Garland was nominated after the February death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
In a 2016 speech on the Senate floor, Tillis said “it is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.”
Tillis said the fact that Trump is up for reelection — Obama was not — and that the same party controls both the presidency and the Senate made this year different.
Burr opposed replacing Scalia in 2016, too, and even said that he would try to keep the seat open throughout the first term of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Democrats made the same argument this year and complained bitterly about the hypocrisy of filling Ginsburg’s seat so close to the election, but to little avail.
Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voted to stop consideration of Barrett’s nomination, a nod to what they said was consistency. Murkowski voted for Barrett’s confirmation. Collins, who faces a tough reelection bid next week, voted no.
Some Democrats say, as a result, they should add more seats the Supreme Court if they take the presidency and the Senate. Republicans have derided any attempts at “court packing.” Tillis co-sponsored two pieces of legislation aimed at stopping any attempt to expand the number of justices on the court.
Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the spot left open after Scalia’s death and then nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, after an historically contentious confirmation battle, were confirmed by the Senate.
Despite unified Democratic opposition to her nomination, Barrett’s three-day hearings were much calmer by comparison.
Tillis attended a White House event for Barrett’s nomination on Sept. 26. Several attendees, including Tillis and Trump, soon after tested positive for the coronavirus. Tillis returned to Washington for Barrett’s confirmation hearings after being cleared by his doctor.
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This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 8:10 PM.
