Retired federal appellate judge Thomas Griffith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that Judge Amy Coney Barrett had ruled against the tenets of her Catholic faith when the law and the Constitution required.
Griffith, speaking in favor of confirming Barrett to the Supreme Court on the last day of confirmation hearings, said:
I have seen firsthand that judges can and do put aside party and politics in a good faith effort to correctly interpret the law. [Justice Elena] Kagan made the same point at her confirmation hearing. She flatly rejected the that difficult cases turn on, quote, what is in a judge’s heart, close-quote. Instead, as she put it with her characteristic wit, it’s law all the way down. That is precisely the type of jurist Judge Barrett has been. In Price versus City of Chicago, She ruled against pro-life litigants who challenged an ordinance that barred them from approaching women near abortion clinics for the purpose of leafleting, protesting, or counseling. Even though there were substantial arguments under the ordinance that the ordinance violated the First Amendment under an aggressive reading of recent Supreme Court precedent, Judge Barrett joined an opinion that followed binding precedent and upheld the ordinance. She displayed the same impartial approach in rulings that allowed the first federal executions in 17 years to proceed, regardless of her personal views on the death penalty. As constitutional scholar Jonathan Adler pointed out, quote, “These decisions certainly are not in line with Church teaching, and further suggest that Judge Barrett applies the law whether or not that coincides with her personal beliefs.”
Four witnesses spoke in favor of confirming Barrett, and four against.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.