Amy Coney Barrett begins Supreme Court confirmation hearing
Here are highlights of how both sides set the stage for questioning.
The high-stakes confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, got underway Monday as Senate Republicans push for a final vote before Election Day despite Democratic calls to let voters decide who should pick a new justice.
Trump nominated Barrett to fill the seat left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The four days of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, overseen by chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, are unprecedented, with some members participating virtually and in-person. Barrett will appear at the witness table to face questions each day.
Hearings start at 9 a.m. each day and will be live streamed on ABC News Live.
Barrett, 48, a devout Roman Catholic, was a law clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, considers him her mentor and follows his originalist interpretation of the Constitution. She practiced law at a Washington firm for two years before returning to her alma mater, Notre Dame Law School, to teach. She was nominated by Trump to the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May 2017 and confirmed by the Senate that October in a 55-43 vote.
Latest Headlines:
- Barrett makes opening statement focused on family, conservative judicial philosophy
- Harris claims Barrett will ‘undo the legacy’ of Ginsburg
- Booker says nomination is about overturning Roe v. Wade
- Blumenthal tells Barrett: 'You must recuse yourself' from any election-related cases
- Hawley claims Democrats show 'religious bigotry,' defends Barrett’s Catholic faith
Barrett confirmation would make SCOTUS history
Amy Coney Barrett, if confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, would be the nation's 115th justice of SCOTUS and the first woman of school-aged children to serve on the nation's highest court.
No nominee has ever been confirmed by Congress this close to the election.
-ABC News' Trish Turner
Barrett to focus on family, morals, judicial philosophy in opening remarks
Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett will focus on her family, morals and judicial philosophy when she appears before the Senate Judiciary committee Monday, according to a copy of her opening statement released Sunday.
The 48-year-old judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Notre Dame law professor and mother of seven wrote in her statement that she was "used to being in a group of nine -- my family."
Barrett, who was nominated to fill the seat left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, references the lessons she learned from the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, particularly as it pertains to her interpretation of the law, in her statement.
"The policy decisions and value judgements of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people," Barrett's statement reads. "The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts could not try."
-ABC News' Allison Pecorin
Majority says wait on the SCOTUS seat; 6 in 10 favor upholding Roe: POLL
Six in 10 registered voters say the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade as the basis of abortion law in the United States, and a majority in an ABC News/Washington Post poll -- albeit now a narrow one -- says the Senate should delay filling the court's current vacancy.
Sixty-two percent in the national survey say they would want the court to uphold Roe, while 24% would want it overturned; 14% have no opinion. There are broad political, ideological and religious-based divisions on the question.
Separately, 52% say filling the seat opened by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year. Forty-four percent instead say the current Senate should vote on Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the position.
That's a closer division than the 57%-39% preference for waiting in an ABC/Post poll late last month. That poll was conducted before Trump nominated Barrett and the Senate moved to proceed with her confirmation hearings, scheduled to start Monday.
Opposition to action has dropped among political independents, from 63% to 51%. Eighty-three percent of Democrats favor waiting to fill the seat, while 77% of Republicans in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, support action now.
Similarly, 77% of conservatives want action by the current Senate; 64% of moderates and 87% of liberals say wait. Among registered voters who want Roe upheld, 68% say the Barrett nomination should be set aside; among critics of Roe, 71% want the Senate to proceed.
Read more about the new ABC News/Washington Post poll here.
-Gary Langer of Langer Research Associates, conducted the poll.
Blumenthal tells Barrett: 'You must recuse yourself' from any election-related cases
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he was “deeply concerned” that the Supreme Court is losing the trust of the American people. He called on Barrett to recuse herself from any election-related cases as the president sows doubts in the results of the election alongside her confirmation process.
“Now President Trump and the Republican senators are eroding and indeed destroying that legitimacy,” Blumenthal said, speaking of the court.
“Your participation in any case involving Donald Trump's election would immediately do explosive, enduring harm to the court's legitimacy and to your own credibility. You must recuse yourself,” Blumenthal continued. “The American people are afraid and they are and for good reason. It is a break-the-glass moment.”
He had noted earlier that Barrett had “auditioned'' for the job through her academic writings and judicial opinions that suggest she would have voted to strike down the Affordable Care Act had she been a justice at the time.
Blumenthal also made clear he will oppose her nomination which he sees as being “about the Republican goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare they seem to detest so much.”