Amy Coney Barrett grilled on Day 2 of Senate confirmation hearings

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, deeming the battle in the hearing room “ACA versus ACB,” said predictions from Democrats about how nominees will make decisions is “propaganda in order to try to make a political point.”

“So judge,” he asked, “you're not willing to make a deal?”

“No, Senator Cornyn,” Barrett replied emphatically. “I'm not willing to make a deal, not with the committee, not with anyone. I'm independent.”

In what became something of a civics lesson, Cornyn asked Barrett why she thinks the American people agree to surrender their right to self-govern and instead live under their elected representatives, the Constitution and “nine people who don't run for election and who serve for life -- why in the world should the American people do that?”

“I think part of the rationale for courts adhering to the rule of law and for judges taking great care to avoid imposing their policy preferences is that it's inconsistent with democracy. Nobody wants to live with the 'law of Amy.' My children don't even want to do that. I can't as a judge get up on the bench and say you are going to live by my policy preferences because I have life tenure and you can't kick me out if you don't like them,” Barrett said. 

Asked if she agrees with the belief of Justice Scalia that to be a good and faithful judge, one must resign themselves to the fact that they may not always like the conclusions reached, Barrett said yes. 

“It is your job to pass the statutes. It is your job to choose policy. Then it's my job to interpret those laws and apply them to facts of particular cases,” Barrett said. “They don't always lead me to results that I would reach if I were queen of the world and I could say ‘you win, you lose or this is how I want it to be’ because I just don't have the power to impose my policy preferences or choose the result I prefer. That's just not my role. I have to go with what you guys have chosen.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., after launching a line of questioning on the Affordable Care Act, which Barrett largely avoided, focused on Barrett’s impartiality as he says Trump has put her and the court "in the worst of positions."

“Are you able to commit to recuse yourself from if it arises out of the 2020 presidential election?” Leahy asked.  

Barrett said she would consider questions of appearance but that she can’t offer a legal conclusion right now on whether she would ultimately recuse herself from election-related cases.

“I commit to fully apply the law of recusal and to consider any appearance question. I will apply the factors that other justices have before me in determining whether it requires my recusal. I can't offer a legal conclusion about the outcome of the decision I would reach right now,” Barrett said.

Senator Leahy, I want to begin by making two very important points and they have to do with the ACA and with any election dispute that may or may not arise. I have had no conversation with the president or any of his staff on how I might rule in that case. It would be a gross violation of judicial independence for me to be asked about that case and how I would rule or make such a commitment. I also think it would be a complete violation of the independence of the judiciary for anyone to put a justice on the court as a means of obtaining a particular result.

Leahy also asked Barrett about a 2006 newspaper advertisement she had signed onto opposing "abortion on demand" but did not disclose in her 2017 appeals court confirmation hearing, Right to Life of St. Joseph County, Indiana. Leahy said the group likened in vitro fertilization to manslaughter in the ad and asked for her subsequent views. 

“I signed the statement that you and I have just discussed and you are right that the St. Joseph County Right to Life ran an ad on the next page, but I don't even think the IVF view you're expressing was on that page. Regardless, I have never expressed a view on it. And for the reasons that I've already stated, I can't take policy positions or express my personal views before the committee,” Barrett said. 

“My personal views don't have anything to do with how I would decide cases, and I don't want anybody to be unclear about that,” she added.

Barrett has not relied on one note in the hearing so far, ABC News’ Trish Turner reports inside the hearing room. She has nothing but a blank pad of paper, two pencils and two bottles of water on her table. At one point, she was asked to show what notes she had and held up the pad.

Behind Barrett sits her family. 

Earlier in the day, Feinstein asked Barrett to introduce them to the hearing room.

“Judge, it is wonderful to see you here. Also with the family that I have been observing. They sit still, quiet, you've done a very good job,” Feinstein said. 

“I have eyes in the back of my head,” Barrett joked, before introducing them. “I have my husband Jesse, my son, J.T., my daughter Emma, my daughter Juliet, my daughter Tess and Liam and six siblings with me today. It's my sister Vivian, my sister Eileen, my brother Michael, my sister Meghan, and my sister Amanda -- and my sister Carey is sitting right over there,” she said. 

“You don't have a magic formula for how you do it and handle all the children and your job and your work and your thought process, which is obviously excellent, do you?” Feinstein asked.

“It's improv,” Barrett replied.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, used his time to slam Democrats for what he called “painting the judge as heartless and on a mission to scrap the health care law.”

“Apparently her concerns in Roberts' ruling in the Obama decision disqualifies her,” Grassley said, referring to his deciding vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act. He then launched into a defense into one of her writings from 2017.

In an essay published by a journal of Notre Dame Law School, Barrett argued that Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute” -- a writing Democrats are likely to seize on.

Grassley asked Barrett directly if she has a “goal” of appealing the Affordable Care Act and whether Trump told her to plan on it. 

"Absolutely not," Barrett said. "If I had been, that would have been a short conversation."

Grassley also questioned Barrett on her dissent of a case involving The First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice bill passed by Congress and signed by Trump in Dec. 2018.