By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
October 29, 2020
Following Monday’s Senate vote and swearing in of new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a number of North Carolina faith leaders and elected officials spoke out about what her confirmation will mean for the nation.
“Justice Barrett earned the strong support of the American people through her confirmation process in the U.S. Senate, and her addition to our nation’s Supreme Court marks a turning point for our judiciary towards upholding the Constitution and rule of law,” said N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore.
A justice on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit since October 2017, Barrett, 48, is a mother of seven children, including two adopted from Haiti. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997 after which she spent two years clerking for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and another few years in private practice before beginning a 15-year teaching career at Notre Dame. She is married to Jesse M. Barrett, an attorney and former federal prosecutor. The Barretts live in South Bend, Indiana.
While on the 7th Circuit Court, Barrett proved herself as “a judge who pays close attention to the factual record in each case and takes seriously the limited role of a federal appellate court,” according to the Heritage Foundation. It is that strict constructionism and her commitment to apply the law, personal opinions notwithstanding, that fits her for the High Court.
“I think that one of the most important responsibilities of a judge is to put their personal preferences and their personal beliefs aside because our responsibility is to adhere to the rule of law,” Barrett said in an interview prior to confirmation hearings.
Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s junior senator, helped shepherd those hearings as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called Barrett “one of the most qualified nominees to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court” and warned that liberal Democrats would try to increase the number of seats on the Court to create a left-wing majority now that Barrett has replaced liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18 at the age of 87.
Tillis said the push to seat Barrett is the culmination of “a decades-long effort by conservatives to reshape the nation’s highest court from a left-leaning body to one that is more reliably right of center.”
The Rev. Franklin Graham pointed out that Barrett’s appointment is one of several good choices by President Donald Trump.
“Already in his first term, President Trump has appointed close to 200 constitutionalist federal judges,” Graham wrote. “With Amy Coney Barrett, he will have appointed three conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices. These actions alone will have an impact on not only my generation, but the lives of my children and grandchildren.”
The Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, said Barrett’s confirmation was helping the nation “turn a corner back towards a proper role for the High Court.”
“The courts were never vested with the powers to decide broadly consequential societal and political questions that are not addressed in the Constitution, as it has in recent decades. If the Supreme Court had stayed in its lane, I don’t think we would have had a Roe v. Wade or Obergfell v. Hodges,” Creech said. “Montesquieu, who had a profound influence on the Founders, said that of each of the three branches of government, the judiciary was supposed to be the weakest. But today it’s obviously become the strongest. So strong, it’s not hyperbole to say the Supreme Court in recent decades has become an oligarchy.”
He said Barrett’s confirmation, as well as the numerous other originalist judges that the President has appointed, should help get us back on the right track.
“What has happened, I think, has the potential of pulling us back from the precipice,” Creech said.