It\u2019s not often you\u2019ve heard me say this, but maybe Rush Limbaugh is right. He called for the Senate to \u201cskip the hearings\u201d and put the question of Judge Amy Coney Barrett\u2019s Supreme Court nomination straight to a Senate floor vote. We all know that Mitch McConnell has the numbers to achieve his ambition: a six to three majority of Federalist Society adherents on the Court. Why go through all of the \u201ctheatre\u201d of process: Committee hearings, speeches, and preliminary votes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the answer is in the question itself \u2013 theatre.\u00a0\u00a0This is part of the price McConnell and the President have to pay for putting a Justice on the Court twenty-one days before a national election. (Well, kind-of before, though almost ten million Americans have already voted).\u00a0\u00a0Both political parties see votes to be gained in the \u201cspectacle\u201d of the Senate Judiciary Hearings.\u00a0\u00a0While Judge Barrett may be the subject of the discussion, in fact, she is merely the foil, the \u201cstrawman\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The real targets are the voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the Republican majority, the object is to drive their base voters to the polls.\u00a0\u00a0Amy Coney Barrett is, as President Trump constantly hammers, \u201ca promise fulfilled\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0She is an arch-conservative jurist, cut from the mold of her mentor, the late Antonin Scalia.\u00a0\u00a0Her judicial view of \u201ctextualism\u201d is the vessel that will allow her to wind the nation back to an \u201cearlier era\u201d, when women, the poor, minorities, and LGBTQ folks had fewer rights.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTextualists\u201d propound that since the \u201cfounding fathers\u201d didn\u2019t envision rights for them, that it couldn\u2019t be a \u201cright\u201d of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But her restricted view about \u201crights\u201d isn\u2019t really what drives the Republican leadership to her defense.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201ctextualists\u201d believe in the \u201crights\u201d of corporations, and the power of wealth.\u00a0\u00a0That drove the Court decision in\u00a0Citizens United<\/em>. In that case they found that restricting campaign spending is a violation of \u201cfree speech\u201d of corporations under the First Amendment. Equating money to speech allowed for the unlimited spending in election campaigns we see today. That empowered groups like the Koch Brothers to exert intense influence on legislators.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But for the \u201ctheatre\u201d of the Senate Hearings, Republicans will present Amy Coney Barrett. She is a brilliant jurist, and a woman who balances career and family.\u00a0\u00a0They will dare Democrats to attack her.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, they will preview attacks themselves.\u00a0\u00a0Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri warned of attacks on her religious beliefs. He claims Democrats would decry her Catholicism and her participation in \u201cThe People of Praise\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Senator Marsha Blackburn further warned that Democrats couldn\u2019t accept a \u201cwoman\u201d who didn\u2019t agree with them, and would attack her based on her gender and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Republicans want Democrats to attack Barrett personally, as they did to Brett Kavanaugh.\u00a0\u00a0An ugly fight over Barrett\u2019s personal life would be exactly what Republican Senate members want.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s all to drive the Republican base to defend Barrett the only way they can, go out and vote for Republican candidates in the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difficulty Republicans are having with that strategy is that the Democrats aren\u2019t \u201cplaying ball\u201d. The Democratic strategy is to use the Barrett hearings as a forum for attacking the Republican agenda. Yesterday the theme was the Affordable Care Act. Democrats used Barrett\u2019s statements opposing the Act to highlight the lack of any Republican replacement for Obamacare, in spite of a decade of opposition to the plan. The emotional stories and pictures of people who would be in dire straights except for the Affordable Care Act were intense, aimed to drive Democrats to the polls, and to slice into Republican support among white suburban women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Expect that Democrats will carefully avoid any personal attacks on Bennett. But they will continue to highlight her views on women\u2019s health and particularly on a woman\u2019s right to choose an abortion. It won\u2019t be about Bennett specifically though, it will be about Republicans continuing their \u201cwar on choice\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But they will attack vulnerable Republican Senators up for re-election. Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, both recently diagnosed with COVID infections, are appearing \u201clive\u201d in the Committee room. Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham himself has steadfastly refused to have a COVID test, despite close contact with the President. Democrats will use this to highlight the President\u2019s failure to control the pandemic, and the politically vulnerable Tillis and Graham\u2019s complicity in his decisions. Democrats will claim that Tillis, Lee, John Cornyn of Texas and Graham have been frivolous and careless in the way they are handling COVID in the Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometime before the election, Judge Barrett will become Justice Barrett of the United States Supreme Court. Should Democrats gain a majority in the Senate and Joe Biden as President, they will then have to decide how to respond to that fact. But in the meantime, the impact of the Barrett nomination will be felt in the most important American way: it will help \u201cencourage\u201d more to go to the polls, and determine who they will vote for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s why we will have the \u201ctheatre\u201d in the Senate this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drive the Vote<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Slice the Suburbs <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Outcome<\/h3>\n\n\n\n