Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed as U.S. Supreme Court Justice in 52-48 Vote Today

By Yehudit Garmaise

   President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court Justice was just confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a vote in which 52 senators voted yes, and 48 mmsenators voted no.

   Barrett is a favorite among religious conservatives, and she emerged unscathed from what were sometimes contentious Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.

 Barrett, a U.S. federal judge in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, is the mother of seven children, one of whom has Down Syndrome and special needs and two of whom are adopted from Haiti.

  Barrett, who is 48, also serves as a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, the school from which she graduated in 1997.

  After the ceremony, Barrett thanked her husband, who is the assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana and her children, whom she called “her greatest joy.”

  Barrett is the sixth conservative judge on the U.S. Supreme Court of nine justices, and the president’s third confirmed justice on the nine-person court.

 In contrast to some lawmakers who regard the Constitution as “a living document” that is open to much interpretation, Barrett is known for her text-based, literal interpretations of the law, a skill she honed as a law clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was as revered by conservatives as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was by liberals.

   As Barrett is replacing Ginsberg, who was a liberal icon, Barrett could potentially shift the ideological balance of the court for decades to come.

   At a ceremony at the White House Rose garden when President Trump nominated Barrett in September, the president said, “Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court.     

    “She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”

     President Trump has also said, “Amy Coney Barrett will decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written.”

    Presidential candidate Joe Biden has hinted that if he wins the election, he would add liberal justices to “stack the court,” so that the Supreme Court would tilt left ideologically.

  Last night on the television program 60 Minutes, Biden said that he would try to “reform the court system because it is getting out of whack.”

   On Monday, President Trump on Monday said that the White House is preparing for a small, “very nice event” in which he will swear in Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court justice.