Supreme Court ‘belongs to all of us’: Amy Coney Barrett accepts Trump’s nomination

President Donald Trump on Saturday said his nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, would “decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written” in legal battles to come on social issues that have long divided the nation.

“Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more,” Trump said in announcing Barrett’s nomination at the White House. “To maintain security, liberty and prosperity, we must preserve our priceless heritage of a nation of laws, and there is no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett.”

Pointing out that Barrett would be the first mother of school-aged children to serve on the Supreme Court, Trump called her a woman of “unparalleled achievement.” But he acknowledged that the fight ahead for her confirmation would be heated, saying in jest, “It’s going to be very quick. I’m sure it will be extremely non-controversial.“

Barrett accepted the nomination with her family in the audience. She expressed gratitude to Trump for his faith in her, and offered a message of unity after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an anchor of the liberal wing of the court, just over a week ago.

“The president has nominated me to serve on the United States Supreme Court, and that institution belongs to all of us,” Barrett said. “If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of those in my own circle, and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this role to serve you.”

Barrett is Trump’s third nomination to the Supreme Court. At 48 years old, she would be the youngest of the current Supreme Court justices and could serve for decades.

A judge for the past three years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Barrett has already faced scrutiny and criticism from some Democrats and liberal groups over her faith-based views and her past writings that suggest they influence her interpretation of law.

ELECTION BATTLE

Democrats are quietly debating how forcefully to question Barrett’s religious views during her upcoming confirmation hearing, suspicious that Trump chose her in part to wage a cultural battle weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Trump’s Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a practicing Catholic, and recent polls suggest that Trump is losing support among white Catholic voters in critical battleground states across the Midwest.

Responding to Barrett’s nomination, Biden said in a statement that the Supreme Court nomination should not be confirmed until after the election.

“The American people know the U.S. Supreme Court decisions affect their everyday lives,” Biden said. “The United States Constitution was designed to give the voters one chance to have their voice heard on who serves on the Court. That moment is now and their voice should be heard,” he said.

“The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress,” Biden said.

Republicans are confident they will have the votes to confirm Barrett, after two Republican senators who were considered on the fence said they would support Trump’s nominee before the election.

The vote is already shaping up along party lines.

Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., who voted in favor of Barrett’s confirmation to the 7th Circuit, said on Saturday that he will not support her ascension to the high court. “I intend to follow that precedent and will not support anyone’s confirmation until we know the election results,” he wrote on Twitter.

Liberal groups are pushing Senate Democrats to do all that is necessary to prevent her confirmation.

“The country already opposes rushing a pick through so close to the election, but in selecting Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump has chosen the person most likely to turbocharge the intensity of the opposition to this whole process,” Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon, former national press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement.

“Barrett’s views may make her a darling of Trump’s base, but they will also make clear to everyone else that nothing less than the survival of the Affordable Care Act and Roe v. Wade are on the line in this fight. Senate Democrats need to be prepared to resist this pick at all costs,” Fallon said.

But conservatives favored Barrett on Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees and warned against criticizing her faith during the confirmation process.

“I think the Democrats are engaged in anti-Christian bigotry of the ugliest form,” said Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “We have a specific provision in the Constitution that there is no religious test to serve in our country, and this is un-American, it’s unconstitutional, it’s despicable and it’s bigotry.”

“There’s no religious test to serve, positive or negative,” he said. “The religious belief or affiliations of any judicial nominee are irrelevant.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America in a memo said objections to Barrett’s nomination are not about “Catholicism or any other faith.”

“Questioning a judicial nominee’s record on abortion rights and their legal philosophy is a duty of all senators. It is not the same as questioning, or attacking, their religious identity and should not be conflated,” the liberal group said.

CONFIRMATION CLASH

At Barrett’s 2017 confirmation hearing for the appellate court, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, faced blowback after telling her “dogma lives loudly in you.”

Faith-based groups accused the California senator — who will once again lead Democrats in Barrett’s upcoming confirmation hearing — of applying an unconstitutional religious test on the nomination.

That 2017 clash at Barrett’s confirmation hearing was one of the reasons she rose to national prominence among conservative groups, said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, and has served as a cautionary tale for Democrats entering the fight to come.

“That really backfired,” Levey said. “It made her better known and more sympathetic, and I think the Democrats will have to be careful this time.”

Amid reports that Barrett was Trump’s choice on Friday night, Feinstein issued a statement that did not mention their previous clash.

“A clear majority of Americans believe the winner of the upcoming election should fill Justice Ginsburg’s seat,” she wrote on Twitter. “This nominee could decide the fate of health care and women’s reproductive rights. Republicans should follow their own rule from 2016 and let the American people decide.”

Senate Republicans have faced accusations of hypocrisy for moving to fill Ginsburg’s seat less than two months before the election. After Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., led Republicans in blocking former President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court citing the proximity to Election Day.

Among the Republicans who attended the event at the White House were Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters he expects the Republican-controlled Senate will try to “move through the process, review her credentials in an expeditious manner.” He said he hoped she would be confirmed by Nov. 1.

Democratic organizations have pointed to Barrett’s relatively thin record on the bench, having served only three years — a track record that provides them with few legal decisions to suggest what kind of justice she plans to be on the high court.

But while her judicial record is sparse, Barrett’s handful of opinions and dissents give conservatives confidence she will be a reliable vote on their core causes.

She has written that lawmakers may not be constitutionally empowered to prevent convicted felons from owning guns, expressed approval of Trump’s authority to restrict immigration and signaled opposition to loosened abortion restrictions.

She has criticized Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his past ruling that upheld the Affordable Care Act, saying he pushed interpretation of the law “beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”

In her remarks from the White House Rose Garden accepting Trump’s nomination, Barrett began by speaking about Ginsburg, whose seat she would be filling. “I will be mindful of who came before me,” she said.