On 18th September 2020, the world wept. The feminist treasure, legal ground-breaker and pop-culture icon, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, passed away at 87. Social media cried.
Politicians, celebrities, and global organisations flooded our feeds with praise and admiration for her extraordinary life. They shared a reel of unfathomable highlights from her most significant successes, defining moments and glimmers of a pure blend of wisdom and wit that became her signature – while she was alive.
Throughout her life, RBG touched so many lives, even those who did not know her personally because of what she stood for. As the first Jewish woman and the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court, her sheer presence in a position of power of a pre-historic and patriarchal system was enough to astound anyone. However, it was what she did with that power and her vote that has made her seat one that nobody would know how to fill.
Who is Amy Coney Barrett?
You haven’t heard of Amy Coney Barrett? Might be because President Trump had been “saving her for Ginsburg”. Barrett was rumoured to be in the running for what is now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh’s seat. A man whose sinister reputation needs no introduction.
Barrett is a “long-term academic, appeals court judge and staunch conservative” and would be the first Associate Justice to have not attended an Ivy League law school.
Within days of the passing of a woman and Justice that President Trump himself described as a “legal giant and pioneer for women”, he swiftly began to hack away at the legacy RBG had left behind. Since Trump is quite the multitasker, he also managed to simultaneously reject her final wishes of announcing her proposed replacement before the US election in November.
To Trump, Barrett is a woman of “unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution”.
To Liberals, she is an insult to everything that RBG represented.
Why is Trump’s pick so controversial?
Before we analyse Amy Coney Barrett and scrutinise every sordid detail of her career, personal life and beliefs as countless international media platforms have done since Trump’s announcement, we are confronted with the hypocrisy of this rushed Republican job.
Mitch McConnell and the rushed appointment
Back in 2016, following the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, President Obama was quick to nominate Judge Merrick Garland to replace him. A move that was scrutinised because, as you’ll undoubtedly remember, 2016 was an election year. Although Justice Scalia passed away in February and the election was not until November, President Obama faced calls to delay the appointment. Kentucky Senator and majority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, cried that any appointment made by Obama would be “null and void” and the decision should be left for the next elected president.
However four years on, McConnell has remarkably changed his tune. He called for President Trump to name a successor to RBG before the US Presidential election despite it, at the time, being less than two months away, and it would be the closest appointment of a Supreme Court Justice to a US Election in history.
A monumental and perhaps hypocritical move but not wholly unexpected either, since an additional conservative Justice would skew the Supreme Court 6 votes to 3 in favour of the conservatives.
The Ceremony that brought Coronavirus to the White House
The Rose Garden ceremony on 26th September, where Trump officially announced his nomination for RBG’s Supreme Court seat, will forever be shrouded in infamy. And rightly so; the event brought together over 200 guests along with invited press to witness Trump’s announcement.
The Guardian has described the event as a “super spreader” with White House officials among other significant figures of Trump’s campaign team, family and some of the most significant legal minds in the country, flouting restrictions placed on the rest of Washington DC.
In the days following the event, a number of the attendees have reported symptoms as well as testing positive for COVID-19. This includes: counsellor to the President Kellyanne Conway, Attorney General Bill Barr, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Senator Tom Tillis and Trump’s Campaign manager Bill Stepien. Not to mention the President himself and his wife Melania Trump.
Why the event went ahead in the first place is anyone’s guess; Trump’s arrogance about Coronavirus and its effects? His refusal to comply with necessary restrictions or make imperative sacrifices for the health and safety of US citizens? Undoubtedly. However, Trump’s ‘FOMO’ might be an even more powerful motivator. The end of his presidency, and even the appointment of the next Supreme Court Justice, has been overshadowed by COVID-19.
In fact, this very ceremony could endanger Trump’s nominee from assuming office before the election. Two members of the judiciary committee, Senators Tillis and Senator Lee, have since tested positive for Coronavirus following the event. For Barrett to be appointed, the judiciary committee must pass her nomination on 19th October or risk a committee deadlock: 10 Democrats to 10 Republicans.
It is still unclear whether the 19th October vote will go ahead and, if so, if the result will hold up. Republicans argue that Tillis and Lee could vote by phone or in writing, while Democrats on the Committee could hypothetically deny a quorum for the committee meeting under what The Independent describes as “extraordinary circumstances”. In simplest terms, this move by the Democratic members of the committee would move the approval of Barrett’s nomination to the Senate, making room for further delays and stones to be kicked down the road to long after 3rd November.
If by some trick of fate Barrett’s nomination is approved, it won’t just be the hypocrisy of her nomination or the infamy of her announcement ceremony that follows her appointment; it will also be Barrett’s own beliefs and connections that spark dissension.
The Regressor to a Progressive Legacy
By now, we already have a good idea about what kind of Supreme Court Justice Trump and the Republicans want Amy Coney Barrett to be. On paper, she is a Republican dream. A white woman, a devout catholic with seven children (two adopted from Haiti), an originalist with conservative values on the illegality of gay marriage and abortion.
With Barrett on side, the Republicans have the power to shift the ideological balance of the Supreme Court for a generation since a supreme court seat is for life. Conservatives hope that the progressive policies that RBG championed including Roe vs Wade may be overturned with Barrett on the Supreme Court.
Barrett has assured her critics that “she will judge cases on law not personal views” and that the role of the Supreme Court should be about enforcing current law rather than creating new policy. However, it is unlikely that Democrats will take her word for it at her confirmation hearing, which begins this week. In a transcript from her opening address, Barrett attributed her legal philosophy to her former mentor and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Yet, that has done little to sway protestors who took to Capitol Hill prior to her opening address. The protesters dressed as handmaids, a reference to Barrett’s connections with the strict Catholic organisation People of Praise, a group that has been attributed as the inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and a group that Barrett has been even affiliated with for decades, until all mention, photos or evidence of Barrett’s connection were suspiciously removed.
We cannot forget what the world could be like
How the Democrats approach the confirmation hearing in the coming days will determine the outcome of Barrett’s application and if she will be the next Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. If the roadblocks that the Democrats are putting in place to delay the process until after the election are too harsh, it may cost them crucial swing seats in the Senate. Similar to the outcome of the 2018 Mid-term elections, their tough scrutiny of now Associate Justice Brett Kavanagh, and the sexual assault allegations against him, lost them key Senate seats according to Senate judiciary committee chair Lindsey Graham.
If Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice will confirm the US as the eerily dystopian and oppressive country that we all fear it is, it seems only logical to consult Margaret Atwood for advice.
“Ordinary is what you’re used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
Our ‘new normal’ is not normal at all. COVID-19, Trump’s presidency, and Barrett’s nomination are anything but normal. They are an extraordinary series of events brought on by even more phenomenal circumstances. Barrett’s nomination is the latest symptom of a presidency that was designed for its citizens to be desensitised and disengaged.
However, there is a but. We need only look at the handmaids on Capitol Hill, or the memories shared by RBG’s clerks and the millions of children that are learning about RBG’s life and legacy across the world right this second.
Barrett herself knows that if she were to fill the space where RBG once used to sit no one will truly take her place. The issues that fracture the US at the moment – a list that is too long to reference – are bigger than any one individual. It’s not that a single Supreme Court Justice appointment is not important – it is. But RBG knew that, for the change the US needs, “enduring change happens one step at a time”.
And until that change manifests, we need to cling to RBG’s memory that much tighter, fight her fight that much harder, and never forget what her seat stood for.
Rebecca Carey
Featured Image courtesy of Gayatri Malhorta via Unsplash. Image license found here.
Featured Image courtesy of Victoria Pickering via Flickr. Image license found here.
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