The standout event of the first day of Amy Coney Barrett's illegitimate hearing for her illegitimate nomination to the Supreme Court should have been a Democratic boycott, and barring that, a unanimous Democratic walk-out the minute Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, walked into the room. See, Lee has been sick with the coronavirus, and Lee was the guy responsible for the Republicans who appeared remotely—Ted Cruz and Thom Tillis—not being there.
Democrats really should have walked out when he took his mask off to make his opening statement. After his presence there was questioned and condemned, Lee circulated a letter from the Office of the Attending Physician, which didn't help matters much. It did not clear him to be there because it made clear that it was Lee reporting that he felt all better and could be there, not that the doctor confirmed anything other than Lee admitting that he felt fatigued the day before. He was there breathing on everybody and they sat there, in the room with him. To approve a "pro-life" justice. Who will vote to get rid of people's health care. This could only happen in 2020.
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We know it's about health care because that's the one thing every Democrat talked about. While Republicans were going on and on about attacks on Barrett’s religion and the bigotry of Democrats, not a single Democrat brought up her religion. They all talked about health care, bringing with them photographs of constituents and telling their stories, all revolving around how their lives were threatened by the loss of health insurance. With Donald Trump arguing before the Supreme Court one week after the election—a SCOTUS that will have Barrett on it if he and Sen. Mitch McConnell have their way—that the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be struck down, it's a salient point.
"Republicans finally realized the ACA is too popular to repeal in Congress, so now they are trying to bypass the will of voters and have the Supreme Court do their dirty work," Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, said in her statement. "This hearing is a clear attempt to jam though a Supreme Court nominee who will take health care away from millions of people during a deadly pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans," she said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, had a particularly poignant story. The day Neil Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate, she recalled, she got a routine chest X-ray to clear her for eye surgery. That X-ray found a shadow, which led to further tests, which led to her stage 4 kidney cancer diagnosis and two massively expensive surgeries. "It would bankrupt almost every family in this country if they did not have health insurance," Hirono said. She talked about the caring and compassion she received from her Republican colleagues on the committee, and how much that has meant to her. Then she turned it on them.
"This can be a moment, Mr. Chairman, for you and your Republican colleagues to show the American people, terrified about losing their health care, the same care and compassion you showed me and continue to show me," she said. "Instead of rushing to jam another ideologically-driven nominee onto the Supreme Court in the middle of an election when over 9 million Americans have already voted, Mr. Chairman, let's end this hypocritical, illegitimate hearing, return to the urgent work we have before us to help those suffering during the pandemic." Graham had no choice but to respond: "We are all very encouraged to hear you are doing well and will keep praying for you." Giving Hirono one more chance to turn the knife: "I appreciate that. Do the right thing."
Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, in addition to talking health care, forcefully condemned the whole process. "This is not normal," he said repeatedly. "Nothing about this is normal,” said Booker. “It is not normal that Senate Republicans are rushing through a confirmation hearing, violating their own statements and betraying the trust of the American people and their colleagues, and failing to take in this hearing even the most basic safety protections for the people around them." He talked about the nationwide devastation Americans are suffering from the pandemic and said that: "We should be working in a bipartisan way to try and get the virus under control, to get relief for people who are hurting, struggling, and afraid, to help people who are unemployed, to let doctors and nurses and hospital staff putting their lives on the line right now in state after state when Covid is rising know that we have their back on the pandemic. Instead of doing anything to help people who are struggling right now, we are here." That was a theme echoed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. "Yes Judge, I think this hearing is a sham. I think it shows real messed-up priorities from the Republican Party," Klobuchar said.
Barrett herself gave the most vanilla statement she possibly could, lying through her teeth. "The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people," she said. "The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try." Which is sort of like John Roberts saying he was just going to be on the court to "call balls and strikes" before he decided in Citizens United that corporations are people too and in Shelby that the Voting Rights Act needed to be gutted. Then she had the unmitigated gall to invoke the giant whose seat Republicans are intent on giving her. "When I was 21 years old and just beginning my career," Barrett said, "Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat in this seat. She told the committee, 'What has become of me could only happen in America.' I have been nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg's seat, but no one will ever take her place." That might be the one thing she said that is objectively true.
Barrett disqualified herself from day one, or would have in any normal timeline. She accepted this nomination before Ruth Bader Ginsburg had even been buried. Weeks before an election, a profoundly critical election in the middle of a pandemic. She agreed to travel to Washington, D.C. with her children, in that pandemic, to participate in unsafe events that resulted in dozens of infections in the White House and Washington and maybe even back home at her children's school.
With Mike Lee's presence at this week's hearings, she's the center at what could be the next superspreader event. It might be shortsighted on his part, though. The one thing that could end up derailing McConnell's efforts to jam her confirmation through would be another rash of infections in the Senate. Lee could very well be creating that.