Donald
Trump is planning to name Amy Coney Barrett as his pick to replace Ruth Bader
Ginsberg on the supreme court, a candidate who has been questioned over her
conservative religious views and was told in during a senate hearing in 2017 by
US democratic senator Dianne Feinstein that “the Dogma lives loudly in you”.
Opinion
Will Amy Coney Barrett Cost Republicans the
Senate?
Mitch McConnell has a tricky needle to thread.
By Michelle
Cottle
Ms. Cottle
is a member of the editorial board.
Sept. 25,
2020
Mitch
McConnell, the Senate majority leader, delights in confirming
Republican-nominated jurists. District courts, appeals courts, most especially
the Supreme Court — he wants to fill them all. In fact, with his party’s having
largely given up on legislating in recent years, this may be what Mr. McConnell
regards as his main duty. It is certainly the part at which he excels.
But for Mr.
McConnell to keep this job, his party must keep control of the Senate. And that
challenge got considerably more ulcer-inducing with the death of Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg last week.
Nothing
reminds voters of the importance of who holds the Senate quite like a nasty
court fight. Typically, the issue energizes Republican voters far more than
Democrats. But this time, as befitting 2020, the situation is knottier.
Democrats are still spitting mad about how Republicans cheated President Barack
Obama out of his Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, in 2016 — based on some
rubbish about how a vacancy shouldn’t be filled during a presidential election
year. And now there are signs that Republicans’ rush to confirm the federal
judge Amy Coney Barrett just a few weeks from Election Day could rally Democrats
as much as their own team.
As has been
noted, Mr. McConnell finds himself in the rare situation where his two loves —
holding power and confirming judges — are in tension.
One early
data point that has Democrats feeling good: money. Since Justice Ginsburg’s
death, contributions have come pouring into progressive groups and individual
campaigns at a level that political veterans say is unlike anything they’ve
ever seen. ActBlue, which focuses on small-dollar donations, pulled in more
than $100 million last weekend. Republicans are hoping for a similar surge now
that Mr. Trump has announced his pick.
The specter
of losing the Senate had already been giving Republicans night sweats. With a
53-47 majority, they are defending 23 seats this cycle, versus Democrats’ 12,
and even some usually safe incumbents have been struggling. The moment the news
broke of Justice Ginsburg’s death, Mr. McConnell began gaming out how to
maximize the electoral benefits: Should the confirmation vote occur before
Election Day, giving lawmakers something to brag about on the campaign trail?
Would it be better to hold the hearings but delay the vote until the lame-duck
session, to keep Republican voters focused on how much is at stake? How much
will Democratic turnout be juiced — and where?
For some of
Mr. McConnell’s members, the focus on the courts could be a lifeline — for others,
a millstone. The most likely casualties are Cory Gardner in Colorado and Susan
Collins in Maine. These blue-state Republicans were already having trouble
convincing independents and moderates that they aren’t Trump tools while not
alienating their base voters, who expect them to be precisely that. Recent
polls have shown Ms. Collins trailing her Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon.
The Trump era has not been good for the senator’s popularity, and her 2018
support of Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a defining moment. Another court battle
is likely to reopen that old wound and slather it in salt.
Ms. Collins
is one of two Republicans to declare that a confirmation vote should be pushed
back until after the election. Mr. Gardner, also lagging in his race, has gone
the other way, announcing that he’s fine with plowing ahead. So many options.
So much uncertainty.
For
Republicans in Trumpier states, such as Kansas and Iowa, this fight may prove
useful, consolidating and energizing base voters who might have otherwise
stayed home. Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, desperate to tie herself to the
president, rushed to issue a fund-raising appeal on Friday night, declaring
herself “the first U.S. senator to call for a nomination.”
Senator
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina may gain the most. An ardent presidential
bootlicker, he has been locked in a surprisingly tight race with Jaime
Harrison, a Democrat. As the chairman of the judiciary committee, Mr. Graham
will lead the confirmation process, which he believes should advance post
haste. This is, to put it mildly, a departure from his position four years ago.
“If there’s
a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the
first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president,
whoever it might be, make that nomination,’” he said in a video clip that
resurfaced last week. “And you can use my words against me, and you’d be
absolutely right.” (He reiterated this take in 2018.)
Some South
Carolinians may do just that. But Mr. Graham’s high-profile role in the coming
hearings is expected to give his candidacy a much-needed shot of adrenaline
with the base.
In purplish
North Carolina, Senator Thom Tillis, one of the most endangered Republicans,
was quick to declare his eagerness to confirm a nominee. This might win him
more love from religious conservatives; it could also prompt more suburban
women and young voters to turn out for his opponent, Cal Cunningham.
Then
there’s Arizona, where a relatively stable race has become a locus of drama.
Mark Kelly, a Democrat, has been running solidly ahead of Senator Martha
McSally for months, and the state is considered one of the Democrats’ top
pickup opportunities. But because the race is a special election — Ms. McSally
was appointed by the governor in December 2018 after losing her bid for the
state’s other Senate seat — the winner could be seated at the end of November.
If Mr. Kelly won and were seated early, and if the confirmation vote were
postponed until the lame-duck session, that would give Democrats one more “no.”
That’s a
lot of “ifs,” but this should give some sense of the nightmare of trying to
game out the political impact of all this.
Not that
Mr. McConnell had a choice. In the midst of all the handicapping, the
confirmation drama should serve as a reminder that ideas still matter in
politics — though perhaps not in the way one would think. Republican voters have
long been motivated, far more than Democrats, by a hunger to shift the courts
in their direction. This is partly because of conservative opposition to
abortion and the desire to see Roe v. Wade overturned. But base voters worry
more broadly about the shifting culture and the decline of “traditional
values.” They are increasingly counting on conservative jurists to take their
side in the culture wars and save them from the horrors of modernity.
Republican
lawmakers recognize that the party’s policy positions, what few it has left,
anyway, tend to lack broad appeal. Unwilling or unable to win the battle of
ideas in areas such as health care and immigration, they are content to
outsource the work — and risk — to the judicial branch. As the Republican commentator
Amanda Carpenter observed on “The Bulwark Podcast” this week, over the past
decade, Republicans gave up on consensus building and doing “the hard work of
passing laws,” and instead are aiming to “have the courts solve our problems.”
Even with total control of the government, Republicans failed to repeal and
replace Obamacare, which they had been promising for years. Instead, they have
kicked it to the courts to dismantle.
Republicans
understand that ideas matter. They also know that having apparently run out of
appealing ones, they must find other ways to exert power. For them, these court
fights are increasingly a matter of political life and death.
Amy Coney Barrett: spotlight falls on secretive
Catholic group People of Praise
Trump’s pick is a member of a ‘covenant community’
that faces claims of a ‘highly authoritarian’ structure
Stephanie
Kirchgaessner in Washington
@skirchy
Email
Sat 26 Sep
2020 13.29 BSTLast modified on Sun 27 Sep 2020 04.37 BST
Donald
Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, to replace Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, has drawn attention to a secretive Catholic “covenant
community” called People of Praise that counts Barrett as a member and faces
claims of adhering to a “highly authoritarian” structure.
The
48-year-old appellate court judge has said she is a “faithful Catholic” but
that her religious beliefs would not “bear in the discharge of my duties as a
judge”.
At the same
time, the Louisiana native and Notre Dame Law graduate, a favorite among
Trump’s evangelical Christian base, has said legal careers ought not to be seen
as means of gaining satisfaction, prestige or money, but rather “as a means to
the end of serving God”.
Interviews
with experts who have studied charismatic Christian groups such as People of
Praise, and with former members of the group, plus a review of the group’s own
literature, reveal an organization that appears to dominate some members’
everyday lives, in which so-called “heads” – or spiritual advisers – make big
life decisions, and in which members are expected to financially support one
another.
Married
women – such as Barrett – count their husbands as their “heads” and all members
are expected to donate 5% of their income to the organization.
Some
conservative and progressive activists have said any discussion of Barrett’s
faith is inappropriate in the context of a Senate confirmation to assess her
judicial qualifications, and potentially reflects anti-Catholic bigotry.
Other
Catholic writers have said it is fair to scrutinize People of Praise because
the group falls far outside mainstream Catholicism.
Barrett has
not publicly discussed her affiliation but her connection was reported in multiple
media accounts at the time of her confirmation to an appellate court in 2017.
Her picture
appears in a May 2006 edition of People of Praise’s magazine, which documents
her participation in a Leaders’ Conference for Women. Her father and her
husband, Jesse Barrett, are also known members.
The group
emerged out of the Catholic charismatic movement of the late 1960s, which
blended Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism – Catholics and Protestants
are both members – and adopted practices like speaking in tongues. The group’s
literature shows communal living is also encouraged, at least among unmarried
members, as is the sharing of finances between households.
A July 2007
“our money our selves” edition of People of Praise’s Vine & Branch magazine
included an article about a 17-member group of women described as “single for
the Lord” and living together in South Bend, Indiana. The women shared a
“sisterhood budget”, which involved them pooling their paychecks while a “head
of the sisterhood” determined, with the sisters’ input, how the money was
spent.
“If one of
us has a need, we’ll pay for it,” one woman named Debbie was quoted as saying.
“But we also work hard to distinguish between our needs and our wants.”
The
“sisterhood” is described as living “simply, frugally, and generously”, with
about $36 put aside per week per person for food and dry goods and $10 for
pocket money to buy “Slurpees and movie tickets”. They buy clothes at thrift
stores and garage sales and 10% of their income is directed to People of
Praise.
The article
quotes a head sister named Nano as saying: “If each of us had her own money, it
would change everything. Just as we would have our own shelf in the
refrigerator, so we would probably partition off other parts of our lives and
be more guarded in certain areas. Having money in common moves you to put
everything in common.”
Whether People of Praise rises to the
level of cult, I am not in a position to make that judgment
Heidi Schlumpf
Adrian
Reimers, a former member turned critic of the group, described in a book
available online called Not Reliable Guides his “grave concern” about how the
life of People of Praise members were “not his or her own” and how “all one’s
decisions and dealings become the concern of one’s head, and in turn
potentially become known to the leadership”.
Reached by
the Guardian, Reimers said he did not want to discuss the matter further.
Writing for
Politico, Massimo Faggioli, a historian and theologian at Villanova University,
said there were “tensions” between serving as a supreme court justice, one of
the final interpreters of the US constitution, and swearing an oath to an
organization he said “lacks transparency and visible structures of authority
that are accountable to their members, to the Roman Catholic church, and to the
wider public”.
“A lot of
what goes on in People of Praise is not that different than what goes on in a
lot of rightwing or conservative Catholic circles,” said Heidi Schlumpf, a
national correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, which reports on the
church.
“Whether
People of Praise rises to the level of cult, I am not in a position to make
that judgment. But there is a level of secrecy that was concerning, and there
was a level of reports by people who left the organization of authoritarianism
that [is] concerning as well.”
‘Neither an
oath nor a vow’
People of
Praise is headed by an all-male board of governors described as its “highest
authority”.
On its
website, the group, which was founded in South Bend in 1971 and has 1,700
members, describes itself as a community that “shares our lives together” and
“support each other financially and materially and spiritually”.
“Our
covenant is neither an oath nor a vow, but it is an important personal
commitment,” the website says. “We teach that People of Praise members should
always follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, and by the
experience and the teachings of their churches.”
A spokesman
did not immediately respond to requests for comment about allegations of
authoritarian structure or why the group has been described as a cult by some
former followers. The spokesman directed the Guardian to the website and said
he was being inundated with media requests from all over the world.
Financial
records previously submitted to Congress show Barrett served as a trustee for
the Trinity School at Greenlawn, a private Catholic school affiliated with
People of Praise, from 2015 to 2017. A parent handbook describes the school’s
commitment to the establishment of “Christian relationships” that adhere to
“scripture and Christian tradition”.
“We
understand marriage to be a legal and committed relationship between a man and
a woman and believe that the only proper place for sexual activity is within
these bounds of conjugal love,” the handbook says, emphasizing that any sex
outside of marriage – whether gay or straight – is not in keeping with “God’s
plan for human sexuality”.
Students
who experience same-sex attraction, the handbook says, ought not to
“prematurely interpret any emotional experience as identity-defining”.
“We believe
that such self-identification at a young age can lead to students being labeled
based solely upon sexuality, generate distraction, create confusion, and
prevent students from experiencing true freedom within the culture of the school,”
the handbook says.
While the
school’s objection to gay marriage and attraction is in line with mainstream
Catholic teaching, the handbook also actively discourages teenage students from
forming “exclusive relationships”, and asks them not to “be exclusive or give
evidence of their dating relationships while at school”.
While the
handbook does not describe its objection to such relationships, one expert who
asked not to be named, because they had already received online abuse for
speaking critically about People of Praise, said it revealed the importance the
group put on the concept of community, rather than individual relationships.
“It’s
typical of these charismatic communities that friendship is seen as a danger to
the community,” the person said. “That’s normal.”
Teachers
who apply for jobs at any schools affiliated with People of Praise are told,
according to an online application, that they need to adhere to a “basic code
of Christian conduct”.
‘A grave
violation of religious freedom’
Democrats
will likely be most concerned about Barrett’s views on abortion and the
Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law that extended health insurance to
millions of Americans.
In 2012, as
a professor at Notre Dame, Barrett signed a letter attacking a provision of the
ACA that forced insurance companies to offer coverage for contraception, a
facet of the law later modified for religious institutions. The adjustment
forced insurance companies – not employers – to alert employees to
contraception and abortion drugs that were available under the insurance plan.
The letter
Barrett signed said: “The simple fact is that the Obama administration is
compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a
health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception
and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot
stand.”
If she is
confirmed before the November election, one of Barrett’s first cases could
determine the fate of the Affordable Care Act.
.jpg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário