Sen. Pat Toomey announced on Wednesday that he will vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Toomey’s office sent out a press release announcing his decision after the GOP Senator met with her on Wednesday.
“Our meeting, along with her record and recent confirmation hearing, affirmed for me that Judge Barrett clearly has the intellect, experience, character, and judicial philosophy needed to be an outstanding Supreme Court justice,” Toomey said in a release. “Importantly, Judge Barrett reiterated to me her strong belief that the proper role of a judge is to apply the law, including the U.S. Constitution, as written, and not to serve as an unelected super legislator who imposes one’s preferred policy outcomes.”
Toomey lauded President Donald Trump nominating her in late-September, saying he was “proud to support” her confirmation to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 and said that the nominee had “shown an unfailing commitment to the proper role of a judge.”
The vote to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court is expected to take place next week.
Loading ...
5 Responses
Toomey continues to have no shame.
Given reversed roles in this environment, dating back to Garland, the other side would be doing the same. Doesn’t make it right. Simply the way it is. On the bright side, ACB appears to be a real quality candidate for the court.
While I disagree with many of her views, I agree that ACB appears to be well qualified, but Toomey and the Senate Republicans set a new precedent that the Senate would not consider a Supreme Court nominee during a presidential election year. They should have held confirmation hearings and a vote on Merrick Garland, who was also well qualified and had bipartisan support in the past, because President Obama was the duly elected President of the United States. They decided to change the rules and said that if the tables were turned, they would be consistent and not consider a nominee by a Republican president during a presidential election year.
Now they are going back on the new precedent they set. It is naked hypocrisy not to hold themselves to their own precedent. It is not hypocrisy to ask someone not to be a hypocrite and to abide by the new rules they set. That is the basic American concept of Fair Play: we all play by the same set of rules. If you change the rules, you don’t just change them back because it’s politically convenient. Saying that Democrats would hypothetically do something to justify Republicans own bad faith and hypocrisy is nonsense. The real Republican rule is now obviously “we have the power and we will use it, to hell with fairness, precedent, or institutions.”
We are going to a troubling place if only one side plays by the rules. American government requires Fair Play.
NEWS ALERT: Views are part of the qualification determination. If Dr. Mengele was intelligent, would you be good with putting him in charge of health programs?
Mitch McConnell knows he is losing the Senate. You don’t get where he got being stupid. I have no idea where this is all leading but I would not be surprised to see one additional seat added to the Court. The Merrick Garland case was grossly unfair when McConnell held the seat open for almost a year. McConnell has done a lot to reduce the reaching across the aisle between parties.