Amy Coney Barrett Senate confirmation hearings Day 3 highlights

After a second audio issue, the hearings resumed with Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina questioning Barrett.

Setting the stakes of her highly-publicized nomination, Tillis asked Barrett why she would even agree to the Supreme Court confirmation process. 

"Why are you doing this, Judge Barrett?" he asked. "Why not just say thanks, but no thanks, leave it for somebody else?"

"Well, as I said to Senator Graham yesterday, and I think this was part of the conversation that you and I had, that this is a very difficult process. Actually, I think I used the word 'excruciating,'" Barrett began. 

“And so one might wonder why any sane person would undertake that risk and that task unless it was for the sake of something good. And as I said yesterday to Senator Graham, I do think the rule of law and its importance in the United States, and I do think the rule of the Supreme Court is important. It's a great good," she said. 

Barrett went on to say the same difficulty will be present for any nominee, so there was no good reason to turn the job down in her eyes.

“And so for me to say, you know, I'm not willing to undertake it, even though I think this is something important, would be a little cowardly, and I wouldn't be answering the call to serve my country in the way that I was asked,” Barrett said. 

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She added that her children have faced some difficulty with the process, but they’re part of the reason she went through with it. 

"Because if we are to protect our institutions and protect the freedoms and protect the rule of law that's the basis for this society and the freedom that we all enjoy, if we want that for our children and our children's children, then we need to participate in that work," she said.

In a testy line of questioning on protections for LGBT Americans, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pressed Barrett to say whether she agreed that Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage, was a sound decision.

While Barrett would say Brown v. Board of Education, which deemed segregation in public schools unconstitutional, and Loving v. Virginia, which did the same for laws banning interracial marriage, were clearly-established precedents, she wouldn’t explicitly say the same about Obergefell.

"Your honor, think of how you would feel as a gay or lesbian American to feel that you cannot answer whether the government can make it a crime for them to have that relationship, whether the government can allow people who are happily married to be overturned," Blumenthal said.

"Well, you are suggesting that I am going to overturn, and you are pushing me to violate the cannons of ethics, and I will not do that,” Barrett interjected, repeating that she should not suggest agreement or disagreement with precedents of the Supreme Court.

Blumenthal said, in turn, Americans have the right to know her legal positions on the cases he presented. 

"I am surprised and I think that a lot of Americans will be scared that the people they want to marry could have marriage equality cut back and in an America where I would not want to live," he said. 

"Well, senator to suggest that is the kind of America that I want to create is not based in any facts of my record and that quote that you read to me from the article talked about it being par for the course for those questions to be asked, but it did not say about whether it is appropriate for the nominees to answer it," Barrett replied.

On Tuesday, Barrett apologized to the LGBT community for using the term "sexual preference" instead of "sexual orientation."

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he wanted to put a "finer point" on something said earlier by Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. -- a point also made by Chairman Graham. 

"I want to agree with the chairman that I think there's nothing wrong with confirming to the Supreme Court of the United States a devout Catholic, pro-life Christian. And it would be my privilege to vote for you," Hawley said. 

On each occasion, Barrett did not object the description of her as anti-abortion.

In a lighter moment, then Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., took over for his line of questioning and said he hopes Barrett got some rest since the long day Tuesday.

"I did have a glass of wine," Barrett offered. "I'll tell you that I needed that, at the end of the day."

"Well, let me just say on that kind of point you have a right to remain silent," Blumenthal joked. 

A problem with Barrett’s microphone brought the briefing to a 15-minute recess around 2 p.m.

As she has done many times during these hearings, Barrett drew a distinction between the late Justice Scalia and a "Justice Barrett," despite their sharing an originalist approach to the Constitution and Scalia having been her mentor. 

"I hope that you aren't suggesting that I don't have my own mind or that I couldn't think independently or that I would just decide like -- 'let me see what Justice Scalia said about this in the past' -- because I assure you I have my own mind," Barrett pointedly told Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. "I share his philosophy, but I have never said that I would always reach the same outcome as he did."

Still, Coons dug into the major conservative shift Barrett would bring to the court and used visual aids to display some of her past writings he argued indicate she would help a new majority overturn landmark cases.

Referring to Scalia's strongly-put contrarian views, Coons said his "memorable dissents may make for great academic reading, but I think most Americans don't expect them to become the law of the land."

"My core concern here, your honor, is that your confirmation may launch a new chapter of conservative judicial activism unlike anything we've seen in decades. And the point of the chart was to just show we've mostly been talking about the Affordable Care Act and privacy-related cases, but if that's true, it could touch virtually every aspect of modern American life," Coons continued.

"I pray that I'm wrong. I hope that I am. But in my reading of your work, nothing has alleviated my grave concerns that rather than building on Justice Ginsburg's legacy of privacy, I'm concerned you will take the court in a very different direction," he said. "So, with all due respect, I will be voting against your confirmation."