Guests on this week’s Sunday news shows have elucidated the Democratic Party game plan to prevent Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s successful confirmation to the Supreme Court bench.
The first principle seems to be something along the lines of: treat Barrett respectfully but launch scathing attacks on her social conservative philosophy. As former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill explained on Meet the Press, Democratic senators “need to really just focus on health care, and civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights. This is an extreme candidate that never would have been nominated before 2017 because it would have been obvious she couldn’t get 70 votes — 60 votes. So I just think they’ve got to focus on the policy and treat her with respect and make sure the hearings don’t turn into a partisan circus.”
The second line of attack appears designed scare more liberally-minded voters over what Barrett’s judicial philosophy would mean for their lives. Also on Meet the Press, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor noted that Democratic sources had been “talking to me about the fact that they need to be making it clearer to [Democratic Party voters] what a Supreme Court conservative majority means for their personal lives.” Democrats hope that if enough Americans believe Barrett will help overturn Roe v. Wade abortion rights or gay marriage rights, they’ll take to the streets and polls to stop her confirmation.
The third and final stratagem looks to the election implications of Barrett’s successful confirmation. As Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin explained on Face the Nation, “This president has been outspoken and outrageous, to think that he would not accept the verdict of the election and that he would make it clear that he’s filling this vacancy on the Supreme Court to make sure it tips his way if there’s any election contest, that is an outrage. … He said it twice. He said it four years ago, and now he’s saying the Supreme Court is part of his plan this time. I think that she should step forward and say that she would recuse herself from any election contest involving this president.”
Durbin’s argument was echoed by liberal analyst Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday. Williams raised the concern that “any dispute in the election might be decided by [Barrett] in the president’s favor. And that would, of course, decide who the next president of the United States is.”
Thus we see the ingredients Democrats hope to rely on to build the case that will prevent Barrett’s confirmation. They know the U.S. Court of Appeals judge is well-liked and respected and has impeccable judicial credentials. But Democrats also hope that they can swell opinion against President Trump’s nominee by presenting her as a judicial extremist who will give Trump the keys to four more years in the White House.
With Trump appearing to want the confirmation vote before Nov. 1, we’ll soon find out whether the plan succeeds.
