Senate Confirms Amy Coney Barrett as U.S. Supreme Court Justice

After a unanimous vote by the Judiciary Committee last week, the Senate on October 26, 2020, confirmed Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett to become the 115th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

“Having confirmed her to the Circuit Court in 2017 with bipartisan support, the Senate has already undertaken a thorough and rigorous review of her record,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said after President Trump made the nomination last month.

Throughout Justice Barrett’s career, she has faithfully upheld the U.S. Constitution as written. The American Bar Association gave Barrett its highest rating, and she has an impressive track record across the legal profession—as a judge, professor, and litigator.

Most important, she will bring a valuable new perspective to our nation’s High Court:

• Justice Barrett is the first mother of school-aged children to become a Supreme Court Justice. She is also only the fifth woman ever to serve.
• As the mother of a child with special needs, she understands the issues and concerns confronting our nation’s most vulnerable people.
• Justice Barrett is the only current justice to have a law degree from a school other than Harvard or Yale. She graduated at the top of her class from Notre Dame Law School in Indiana.

Justice Barrett has made her philosophy clear: She will not legislate from the bench.

“Courts have a vital responsibility to the rule of law,” said Justice Barrett during her confirmation hearings, “which is critical to a free society, but courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life.”

“The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches, elected by and accountable to the people,” she added.

One letter—written by Justice Barrett’s former law clerks—calls her approach principled and independent-minded. “Judge Barrett taught us that a good judge will not always like the results she reaches; a good judge goes wherever the law leads,” it says.

Justice Barrett is the very model of a sympathetic yet impartial judge, according to her colleagues at Notre Dame Law School. She is exactly the type of person whom the American people deserve to have sitting on their Supreme Court.

“If we are to protect our institutions, and protect the freedoms, and protect the rule of law that’s the basis for the 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,” Justice Barrett said.