“Elections have consequences,” former President Barrack Obama told us repeatedly during his Presidency. In the 2016 election, voters chose Donald Trump to be President, with the power to appoint Federal Judges and Justices with the advice and consent of the Senate for his entire four-year term. Voters should have their choice respected, not nullified by power-hungry Democrats.
The concern of voters on this issue is why Trump released a list of well-qualified legal conservatives in 2016 as prospective judicial nominees, promising to fill vacancies from the names on that list. Trump has kept that promise faithfully during his entire term in office. Voters elected him in part because of those respected and well-qualified names, and his appointments.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, former Supreme Court Clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, graduating first in her class at Notre Dame Law School, where she has taught as Professor of Law for 20 years, more recently serving as a Judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, came from precisely that list. At 48, she could be the first woman chosen to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, after current Chief Justice Roberts retires. She is the spiritual and personal embodiment of the great and revered Scalia.
Judge Barrett has a long history of following the Constitution and the law, as written, not substituting her personal policy preferences for those of the founders of our nation, making up the law rather than following the law. That is the role of Congress, not Judges. That is why she is so highly regarded by constitutionalists and conservatives across our nation and is so right for the highest court in our land.
Voters do not favor Judicial activists making up the law on the Courts. That is why they so strongly favor Trump’s strong record of conservative judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and now Barrett. It was a great Democrat, President John F. Kennedy, who fought for the equal right of Catholics to serve in public life. Why can’t Democrats today live up to those high standards?
Under the rule of law and equality for all, the American Revolution led to the abolition of aristocracy and monarchy, which has since spread around the world. That is the legacy that is meant by the term American Exceptionalism. Equal rights under the law has been the hallmark of our Nation’s history and a key responsibility of our judiciary.
Conservative judges respect these rights, which is one reason why President Trump established a list of conservative judges who he pledged to appoint to the courts. Amy Coney Barrett has a long history of such conservative judicial fealty.
This appointment has garnered support among Evangelicals, Catholics, and Jews, creating historic religious unity in this time of intense national division. Joining this coalition are pro-lifers, gun rights supporters, freedom of speech advocates and everyone else devoted to the Bill of Rights.
Judge Barrett has spent enough time (3 years) on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for her to have created a record of decisions that faithfully reflect her commitment to follow the Rule of Law. Legal scholars who have examined her record concur that her opinions evidence a high level of legal craftsmanship, which has been confirmed by the number of her opinions cited as precedent and authority by other judges and courts.
Furthermore, and key to reining in government regulators and the regulatory state (i.e., helping to “drain the swamp”), she has joined in opinions that have restricted the self-serving interpretations by bureaucrats of their own rules and regulations. Rather than the Judicial Deference to which bureaucrats have become so accustomed.
On top of that, her personal history has underscored her commitment to the family values so vital to our nation’s future. Her lengthy marriage and devotion to family and children show exactly that. But her – and her husband’s – willingness to adopt and care for two orphans from Haiti strongly underscore her personal commitment to equal rights for all, regardless of racial background.
The confirmation hearings should be a “no brainer” for the Senate, which so recently heard and confirmed Barrett for her Court of Appeals appointment. Who could want more?
Lew Uhler is founder and chairman of the National Tax Limitation Committee and of the National Tax Limitation Foundation (NTLF). He was a contemporary and collaborator with Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman in California and across the country.
Peter Ferrara is a senior fellow with NTLF and the Heartland Institute, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He formerly served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, associate deputy U.S. attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, and as the Dunn Liberty Fellow in Economics at the King’s College in New York.
Roberts is compromised, beyond doubt. His writing on issues on which he does what the Constitution says are clear and lucid, while his opinions on issues on which he takes an unexpected left turn sound like the forced confessions of tortured POWs – a plea for help.
ACB will be a fantastic addition to the court. Perhaps Roberts will do the right thing and step down during Trump’s second term.