The right-leaning Judicial Crisis Network is rolling out a six-figure ad campaign targeting Senate Democrats it says attacked a judicial nominee on the basis of her Catholic faith.
The 10-day ad campaign takes aim at Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Dick Durbin of Illinois for their questioning of President Trump’s nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Amy Coney Barrett. Feinstein and Durbin grilled Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor, over her Catholic faith and practice of it, during a hearing last week.
“The message from Senate Democrats: Catholics need not apply,” a narrator says in the 60-second ad. “Coney Barrett is an esteemed law professor at Notre Dame, but they mocked her for following her Catholic faith. Their hypocrisy knows no limits. They attack a woman for her Catholic faith, make it a religious test, while they are afraid to call radical Islam, radical Islam.”
The narrator urges the audience to tell Democrats to “end the religious tests” and “don’t attack Catholics for being Catholic.”
“This is going to be known as Feinstein’s Folly,” said Carrie Severino, Judicial Crisis Network chief counsel and policy director. “Her line of questioning reeked of ‘No Catholics need apply,’ while ignoring Professor Barrett’s stellar qualifications, experience and fierce commitment to defending the Constitution. Feinstein was fundamentally at odds with our constitutional commitment to religious freedom, not to mention politically tone-deaf. … A nominee’s faith should have nothing to do with his or her qualifications to be a federal judge. Period.”
If confirmed, Barrett would be the first Hoosier woman on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
