Townhall Review | Commentaries

Senate Democrats want the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to be all about Obamacare and, more specifically, its protections for those with preexisting conditions. That’s because in a few weeks, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in California v. Texas, a lawsuit about the constitutionality of Obamacare.

But, as Judge Barrett correctly noted, Obamacare’s preexisting condition protections are not at issue before the Supreme Court in this case. Democrats are trying to mislead Americans into believing that the most politically popular elements of Obamacare are at risk while at the same time using some faulty assumptions to make their arguments.

Obamacare’s unpopular individual mandate is at issue. But even if Barrett and the Court find that the mandate is now unconstitutional, the rest of the law will likely stand, leaving its more popular provisions in place.

Judge Barrett will make many decisions on the Court if she is confirmed but causing the demise of Obamacare in the case before it this year won’t be one of them.  

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For the good of the country, Joe Biden must clearly and definitively answer the court-packing question

The Supreme Court is now at center stage with the start of Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. The court is also now at the center of the presidential election as many Democrats demand that—if their party controls the White House and Senate after the election—the court be expanded to establish a liberal majority.

“Court packing” is now a major issue in the presidential campaign because neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris—his running mate—will say what they think about demands by their party’s radical wing to expand the court.

Court-packing is a threat to the Supreme Court and thus to every American freedom, especially religious liberty, and the Second Amendment and property rights, and the separation of powers fundamental to our republic’s durability.

The Biden-Harris ticket should publicly condemn the idea—and condemn it now.

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So, what’s really up when you hear controversy over how judges are to apply the Constitution of the United States? Actually, more than most citizens understand.

Here is the plain and simple issue at stake: In the early twentieth century, liberal justices on the Supreme Court began to argue for what they called a “living Constitution.” They meant that the Constitution had to be understood as a document that judges must make relevant for their own times. This is how they came up with a supposedly constitutional right to abortion, for example.

Conservative justices are “originalists,” meaning they read the Constitution as it was written, in its original meaning. If the judges get to make up new meanings of the Constitution and essentially legislate, we are ruled by judges, not by law.

All that is at stake in the fight for the Supreme Court, and you can see why it is so important.

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Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris allowed the American people to understand that there are some very stark contrasts in policy between what four more years of President Trump would look like, as compared to a Biden Administration.

The differences across issues as wide-ranging as climate change and energy policy, health care policy, and taxation were apparent. Vice President Pence’s ability to characterize Senator Harris and the Biden-Harris ticket more broadly as overly progressive was perhaps his biggest accomplishment in the debate.

Harris pointed out that Biden will repeal the Trump tax cuts. Pence noted that this will mean tax hikes for all voters—an effective attack that was left unanswered by Harris. From taxes to energy policy to the role of the judiciary, the differences were apparent.

Trump and Pence should focus their fire on these kinds of issues during the closing weeks of the campaign.

The choice this November is clear. It’s now up to us to cast our votes.

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Two years ago I wrote of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s approach to judicial appointees who will respect America’s founding document, saying that it was not an overstatement that the Leader has saved the Constitution as we know it.

With the successful confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, McConnell will complete the effort of repairing a great breach in the Constitution that began half a century ago when the left commandeered the courts for the purposes of legislating from the bench instead of applying the law from there.

Much consequential legislation has been passed during McConnell’s tenure. But, it’s three new Supreme Court justices and—so far—53 appeals court judges, that mark McConnell’s contribution to the nation. 

In the 19th century, Henry Clay, the Great Kentuckian, was called “the great compromiser.” Today, we ought to be referring to Leader McConnell as “the great constitutionalist.”

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The appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court counts as a masterstroke, and easily one of the best decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency.

In an election season when liberals and media try to characterize conservatives as old, angry, bigoted, extreme and lacking in empathy, Judge Barrett displays the opposite characteristics. At age 48, she’s youthful, a genial consensus builder, and mother of seven--including a special needs child and two adopted kids from Haiti.

On a court dominated for decades by Yale and Harvard graduates, she’s a breath of Midwestern fresh air, beloved by her students at Notre Dame.

Most importantly, she’ll give new life to the originalist thinking of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, in stressing what the Constitution actually says, not what judges want it to say. As Americans have been losing faith in public institutions, Judge Barrett—soon to be Justice Barrett—can help to restore their confidence.

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The Bible tells us to pray for “all those in authority,” and we ought to be praying with real urgency with the knowledge that President Donald Trump has contracted the coronavirus and was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment and care. Anytime the nation’s Chief Executive needs medical treatment, it is big news. In this case it is especially big news because the virus’s path is not always clear and the nation is also facing a presidential election less than one month from now.

Thankfully, the President is receiving the best medical care in the nation, and he is reported to be responding well to treatment.

Our nation invests so much power and responsibility in our president. Americans, whatever their politics, must join in common concern and prayer for the President’s full recovery, and for the First Lady, Melania Trump, who has also tested positive for the virus. There is far more at stake here than politics. Pray!

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The newly popular charge that America suffers from “systemic racism” ignores the realities of how our current system of law, politics, business and culture really works.

In legal terms, racism has been illegal for 50 years now with bans on discrimination in hiring, housing, education and much more. Yes, racist attitudes still exist, but the system and our culture now work against them, not for them.

In politics, 12 percent of the House of Representatives is now black—closely matching the black percentage of the population, and the nation twice elected a black President. In business, discrimination not only violates the law but hurts the bottom line, in hiring and customers, when 40 percent of America identifies as non-white.

Finally, a striking explosion of black creativity and success characterizes our culture, while open expressions of bigotry lead to disgrace and even ostracism. The American system has changed profoundly—far from imposing racism, it now strives to eliminate it.

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Anti-Catholic bigotry has no place in the confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve as Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

It was the liberal scholar Father James Martin who wrote 20 years ago about the bane that is anti-Catholicism. It's often called the “last acceptable prejudice.” It isn’t acceptable. Not then. And not now.

The country may be about to see who among us still harbors this prejudice.

In the 2017 confirmation hearing for Barrett, Senator Diane Feinstein infamously said to the judge, “the dogma lives loudly within you.”

This open attack on Barrett’s beliefs was roundly and rightly condemned. It should not be repeated.

When it comes to a nominee’s faith—or lack of it—Article VI of the United States Constitution makes it clear: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

That’s an absolute prohibition in the Constitution, and any senator who violates it should be ashamed—and shamed.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett ought to have a respectful hearing—and a quick confirmation.

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Tuesday night’s presidential debate was a study in contrasts: The accomplishments of a president over the last 47 months, against a politician who’s been in politics for 47 years.

Two more presidential debates are scheduled in the coming weeks, and the task for President Trump is clear: He must continue to emphasize his accomplishments while sharing more with the American people about his plans for the next four years.

The president has plans to lower the cost of health care and make our health care system more accessible and transparent; plans to lower taxes for middle-income Americans, while continuing to cut red tape for job creators and entrepreneurs; and plans to hold China accountable for its misdeeds and address other geopolitical challenges around the world.

Looking ahead, President Trump should spend more time emphasizing these plans and talking about where he would lead the country in a second term. That’s a recipe for winning not only the debates and the undecided voter—but perhaps the election too.

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