Senate Democrats Under Fire After Handing Trump’s Judicial Nominee Religious Test

Feinstein
Dr. Susan Berry

Princeton University’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Robert George says Sen. Dianne Feinstein should “resign” after her display of “liberal bigotry” in handing a religious test to a judicial nominee about her Catholic faith and how it allegedly would affect her judgment while serving on the bench.

“This is disgusting,” George tweeted after Feinstein told President Donald Trump’s judicial nominee, Notre Dame Law School Professor Amy Coney Barrett, “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”

“And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country,” Feinstein, a Jewish Democrat from California, added.

Barrett, who once clerked for Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, was nominated by Trump for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

“Catholics should not tolerate liberal bigotry a moment longer,” George continued in his tweet. “Sen. Feinstein, you’ve shown your true colors. Resign!”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), a Catholic who votes to promote abortion rights, also questioned Barrett on her faith, particularly her phrase “Orthodox Catholic” in a 1998 law review article she wrote about capital punishment sentences and Catholic judges.

“Are you an orthodox Catholic?” Durbin asked her.

“I am a Catholic,” Barrett replied.

“I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on my duties as a judge,” she added.

Writing at National Review, David Harsanyi observes:

Barrett’s real sin, as it were, isn’t that her faith might get in the way of doing her job, but that chances are exceptionally high she will take her oath to defend the Constitution far more seriously than Feinstein does. When the California senator claims to be troubled by Barrett’s “dogma,” what she was really saying was: “You clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, which means you’ll probably take the Constitution far too literally. Yet, at the same time, you hold heretical personal views on the only two constitutional rights that my fellow liberals are dogmatic about: abortion and same-sex marriage.”

As CNSNews.com notes, Princeton’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee following the Democrats’ interrogation of Barrett about her faith:

I write, as a university president and a constitutional scholar with expertise on religious freedom and judicial appointments, to express concern about questions addressed to Professor Amy Barrett during her confirmation hearings and to urge that the Committee on the Judiciary refrain from interrogating nominees about the religious or spiritual foundations of their jurisprudential views.

“Because religious belief is constitutionally irrelevant to the qualifications for a federal judgeship, the Senate should not interrogate any nominee about those beliefs,” Eisgruber continued. “I believe, more specifically, that the questions directed to Professor Barrett about her faith were not consistent with the principle set forth in the Constitution’s ‘no religious test’ clause.”

As Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak reported:

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States,” yet Feinstein and other Democrats on the panel effectively imposed a religious test on Barrett. It was the second time in recent months that the opposition had attempted to do so: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked Russell Vought, nominated for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, about his Christian belief that salvation comes only through Jesus, as if that would be disqualifying.

“Article VI’s prohibition of religious tests is a critical guarantee of equality and liberty, and it is part of what should make all of us proud to be Americans,” Eisgruber wrote, adding that Barrett “and other nominees ought in any event to be evaluated on the basis of their professional ability and jurisprudential philosophy, not their religion.”

https://twitter.com/RepTrentFranks/status/906224724761608192

Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, also tweeted in response to the Democrats’ questioning of Barrett’s faith, “Troubling statements coming from Dems during judicial confirmation hearings. The Christian faith is not a demerit!”

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