Further thoughts (all futile) on the (then upcoming) Judge Barrett confirmation process

Hoping for Four

In the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, lawyer Joseph Welch asked then-Senator Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?  At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Given their unprincipled eagerness to seat Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, we could pose the above question -- in gender-neutral form -- to every pro-Barrett Republican member of the U.S. Senate. Why so? Because, as explained below, with respect to the Barrett nomination most or all of the Republican Senate majority seem to have lost all sense of decency with respect to both substance and procedure. Concerning substance, the Senate's GOP senators seem unwilling to take note of the grave danger of confirming a Supreme Court Justice who has dogmatically spoken out on at least two key issues -- both the ACA and Roe v. Wade -- that are very likely to come again before the Court.

Grave danger?  Judge Barrett's confirmation would destroy any semblance of the Supreme Court's judicial neutrality.  Though some scholars say that the Court's neutrality is more myth than fact, attempted adherence to it is essential for public acceptance of the Court's decisions. Moreover, the principle of judicial neutrality is crucial to the Constitution's system of checks and balances among our three branches of government. Judge Barrett's lack of neutrality?  Concerning the ACA, then-Professor Barrett wrote in 2017 that the Supreme Court's majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.” And with respect to Roe v. Wade, then-Professor Barrett joined an anti-abortion-rights faculty group and added her name to a letter in the South Bend Tribune criticizing Roe’s “barbaric legacy.” In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Barrett promised to uphold the rule of law and gave this assurance: “My personal views don’t have anything to do with the way I would decide cases.” Why is such assurance bogus at best? Because most cases get to the Supreme Court because the applicable law is unclear. To say that a Justice's personal moral views would have no effect on how she would resolve legal uncertainties is as preposterous as it is intellectually dishonest. Procedural indecency?  In its eagerness to confirm Judge Barrett's nomination just before the November presidential election, the GOP Senate majority appears willing to cast its own prior principle -- solemnly invoked in refusing to even consider President Obama's nomination of Judge Garland almost eight months before the 2016 presidential election -- to the wind. By conveniently nullifying their former sacred taboo against considering Court nominees "too close to a presidential election," the GOP stoops to a cynicism that makes Satan almost seem a saint. But remembering Abraham's search for some righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, perhaps there are four Republican senators who have not lost their sense of decency, their sense of shame, and their devotion to fair play? And who will therefore vote against the whole Senate's considering Judge Barrett's nomination unless and until President Trump is re-elected? Let us hope.

[But, surprise, surprise, our hopes were disappointed. Have shameless and Republican become synonyms?]