House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., cautioned her fellow Democrats in the other chamber of Congress against bringing up Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism during the judge’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the Senate.
Pelosi, who is a Catholic herself, argued that a person’s religious beliefs should not matter to the senators questioning the potential Supreme Court justice, but instead they should focus on Barrett’s views on the Constitution.
“I think it’s appropriate for people to ask her about how faithful she would be to the Constitution of the United States, whatever her faith,” Pelosi said Sunday during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It doesn’t matter what her faith is or what religion she believes in. What matters is, does she believe in the Constitution of the United States?”
Pelosi added: “Does she believe in the precedent on the Supreme Court that has upheld the Affordable Care Act? This is, again, directly related to a major concern of the American people, as it was in 2018. Health care, health care, health care. The three most important issues in this election.”
In a 2013 Texas Law Review article, Barrett listed fewer than 10 cases she said are widely considered “super-precedents,” ones that no justice would dare reverse even if they believed they were wrongly decided. Among them was Brown vs. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.
One she didn’t include on the list: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that affirmed a woman’s right to abortion. Scholars don’t include it, she wrote, because public controversy swirling around it has never abated.
Abortion and women’s rights were the focus of a bruising 2017 confirmation process after Barrett’s nomination to the 7th Circuit.
Others pointed to Barrett’s membership of the University of Notre Dame’s “Faculty for Life” group – and that she had signed a 2015 letter to Catholic bishops affirming the “value of human life from conception to natural death.”
The Senate eventually confirmed her in a 55-43 vote, with three Democrats joined the majority.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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