总统唐纳德·特朗普周六，他宣布提名联邦法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特到最高法院填补已故大法官的空缺鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格。
选择巴雷特的举动在离选举日不到两个月的时候引发了一场激烈的确认战选举这个季节已经充满了冠状病毒流行病和总统试图破坏对结果的信心。
它还承诺颠覆几十年来一直标志着法院的相对意识形态平衡，如果特朗普的提名人当选，将建立明确的保守多数。
2020年9月26日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在DC白宫玫瑰园提名艾米·科尼·巴雷特为美国最高法院法官。
“三年前，巴雷特法官经两党投票向巡回法院确认。她的资质无人能及。无与伦比，她的记录无可指责。这应该是一个直接而迅速的确认，”特朗普在玫瑰园声明中说。
他补充说，“最高法院将在未来几年发布的裁决将决定我们的第二修正案的生存、我们的宗教自由、我们的公共安全等等。为了维护安全、自由和繁荣，我们必须保护我们法治国家的宝贵遗产。没有人能比艾米·科尼·巴雷特做得更好。”
在她的提名上，巴雷特说，“我爱美国，我爱美国的宪法。我真的很荣幸能在最高法院任职。"
2020年9月26日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在DC白宫玫瑰园提名艾米·科尼·巴雷特为美国最高法院法官。
巴雷特是一名虔诚的天主教徒，七个孩子的母亲，也是保守派团体的首选，相对来说，他是联邦法官中的新人，在芝加哥第七巡回上诉法院任职仅三年。尽管担任联邦法官的时间很短，但这位长期任职的圣母大学法学教授在金斯伯格去世后的几天里，成为特朗普候选名单上的领先者。
48岁的巴雷特是自1991年克拉伦斯·托马斯以来最年轻的最高法院提名人，预计将任职到本世纪中叶——这一前景对特朗普和他在国会山的盟友很有吸引力。
消息人士称，巴雷特在政府内部的吸引力也部分取决于她作为已故大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚(Antonin Scalia)的门徒的声誉，她曾是宗教权利的象征。
对民主党人来说，巴雷特的保守倾向和宗教信仰——主要通过她丰富的学术著作目录来表达——使她在2017年获得联邦法官的批准成为一件痛苦的事情。在一次激烈的职位确认听证会上，巴雷特成为了保守派圈子里的摇滚明星——不是因为她对委员会说的话，而是一位强大的参议员对她说的话。
“不管什么宗教，都有自己的教条。该委员会的资深民主党人加州参议员黛安娜·范斯坦说。“我认为在你的情况下，教授……教条在你的内心深处很响亮，这是令人担忧的。”
范斯坦的评论遭到了宗教自由团体和共和党参议员的指责。她的一句话，“教条在你体内大声传播”，从此出现在t恤和杯子上，在网上出售。
在同一次听证会上，巴雷特说，“我认真对待我的信仰，我是一名忠实的天主教徒，”但他向参议员们保证，“将法官的个人信念强加于法律是不合适的，无论它们是源于信仰还是其他任何地方。”
2020年9月24日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在佛罗里达州杰克逊维尔的一次集会上发表讲话。
里克·加内特教授是巴雷特的前同事和邻居，她说巴雷特回应范斯坦言论的“优雅”吸引了宗教保守派，提高了她在政府中的地位。
加内特告诉美国广播公司新闻，“她处理听证会的方式提升了她在公众对话中的地位”。“不仅仅是一些参议员说了一些关于宗教的奇怪的事情，而是当时巴雷特教授以一种体面的方式处理了这件事，我认为这让许多美国人——各种各样的宗教信仰者——感到鼓舞和自豪。”
最终，参议院以55票对43票批准了她的提名，只有三名民主党人跨党派投票。
巴雷特自称是原创主义者，她作为上诉法官的任期证实了她的保守资历。她在2018年写了一份异议，主张不应禁止已定罪的重罪犯拥有枪支。虽然她还没有就堕胎问题做出裁决，但她已经两次表明了与反堕胎运动一致的立场。
在担任法官之前，巴雷特在圣母院法学院(也是她的母校)成名。在她2017年的确认过程中，她的圣母院法同事们写道一封热情洋溢——而且一致——的支持信。450多以前的学生也主张她确认。
她在课堂上教授联邦法院、宪法和法律解释课程，并在课堂上发表了几篇学术文章，涵盖从最高法院判例到正当程序等主题。
巴雷特在她的学术著作中主张天主教法官回避死刑案件，引用了“执行死刑在道德上是不可能的”，并建议法律先例很容易被推翻，这导致批评者质疑她如何看待里程碑式的堕胎裁决罗伊诉韦德案。2013年，巴雷特在圣母院学生报他说“目前法院不太可能推翻罗伊诉韦德案”
在2017年的确认中，巴雷特收回了她在死刑问题上的立场，告诉参议员她不会“作为一个总括问题”回避死刑案件。在堕胎问题上，她坚持过去的评论，即“堕胎……总是不道德的，”但补充说，如果得到证实，她“对这一问题或任何其他问题的看法将不会影响她履行作为法官的职责。”
2020年9月22日，一张艾米·科尼·巴雷特(Amy Coney Barrett)的照片挂在田纳西州孟菲斯市罗兹学院名人堂。
对巴雷特信仰的审视也延伸到了她的个人背景，尤其是她与一个被称为赞美的人。
该组织鼓励其1，700多名成员与社区缔结契约，并为年轻成员指派一名个人导师，称为“负责人”或“领导者”。直到最近，扮演这些角色的女性还被称为“女仆”，这使得一些新闻媒体和评论员猜测，《赞美的人》可能是玛格丽特·阿特伍德著名小说《女仆的故事》背后的灵感来源。阿特伍德和《赞美之人》都否认了这些说法。
巴雷特没有公开谈论她在《赞美之人》中的参与，无论是该组织还是巴雷特的助手都不会评论她在该组织中的现状。批评者认为，她与社区的联系和许多成员达成的协议——该组织称之为“我们选择对彼此做出的爱和服务的承诺”——可能与她维护宪法的誓言相冲突。《赞美之人》否认其做法会对成员的职业生活产生任何影响。
巴雷特的确认过程预计将受到提名和听证会的政治压力，距离总统选举如此之近。
民主党人指责共和党人在推进金斯堡的替代者方面虚伪，金斯堡上周在11月投票前45天去世。2016年，斯卡利亚在选举前200多天去世后，共和党人阻止了巴拉克·奥巴马总统的最高法院提名人梅里克·加兰法官。
巴雷特出生于路易斯安那州，在1997年以最优异的成绩从圣母大学获得法律学位之前，她在田纳西州孟菲斯的罗德学院就读本科。从法学院毕业后，巴雷特为华盛顿特区巡回上诉法院的劳伦斯·西尔伯曼法官和斯卡利亚法官做过短期私人执业律师。
她的丈夫杰西·巴雷特在印第安纳州北部地区担任助理美国检察官。
President Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court seat
PresidentDonald Trumpon Saturday announced his nomination of federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to fill the seat of the late JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg.
The move to select Barrett sets up what promises to be a bitter confirmation fight less than two months before Election Day -- an unexpected twist in anelectionseason already fraught with thecoronaviruspandemic and attempts by the president to undermine confidence in the result.
It also promises to upend the relative ideological balance that has marked the court for decades, establishing a clear conservative majority should Trump's nominee be seated.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett speaks after being nominated to the US Supreme Court by President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on Sept. 26, 2020.
"Judge Barrett was confirmed to the circuit court three years ago by a bipartisan vote. Her qualifications are unsurpassed. Unsurpassed and her record is beyond reproach. This should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation," Trump said during the Rose Garden announcement.
He added, "Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more. To maintain security, liberty and prosperity, we must preserve our priceless heritage of a nation of laws. And there's no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett."
Upon her nomination, Barrett said, "I love the United States, and I love the United States' Constitution. I'm truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court."
Judge Amy Coney Barrett speaks after being nominated to the US Supreme Court by President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on Sept. 26, 2020.
A devout Catholic, mother of seven and the favored choice of conservative groups, Barrett is a relative newcomer to the federal bench, having served just three years on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite her short tenure as a federal judge, the longtime Notre Dame Law professor emerged as the front-runner on Trump's shortlist in the days following Ginsburg's death.
At 48, Barrett is the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Clarence Thomas in 1991, and could expect to serve well into the middle of the century – an attractive prospect to Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill.
Barrett's appeal within the administration has also been shaped in part by her reputation as a protégé of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an icon of the religious right for whom she once clerked, sources said.
For Democrats, Barrett's conservative tilt and religious affiliation – expressed largely through her prolific catalog of scholarly writings – made her approval to the federal bench in 2017 a bitter affair. During a combative confirmation hearing for the post, Barrett became a rock star in conservative circles – not for what she told the committee, but what a powerful Senator said to her.
"Whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different," said California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee's ranking Democrat. "I think in your case, professor … the dogma lives loudly within you, and that is of concern."
Feinstein's comments drew rebukes from religious freedom groups and Republican senators. Her phrase, "the dogma lives loudly within you," has since made its way onto tee shirts and mugs for sale on the internet.
During the same hearing, Barrett said, "I take my faith seriously and I'm a faithful Catholic," but assured senators that it is "never appropriate to impose a judge's personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law."
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 24, 2020.
Professor Rick Garnett, a former colleague and Barrett's neighbor, said the "grace" with which Barrett fielded Feinstein's remarks appealed to religious conservatives and improved her standing with those in the administration.
"The way she handled that [hearing] elevated her in the public conversation," Garnett told ABC News. "It's not just that some of the senators said some strange things about religion, but it was that then-Professor Barrett handled it in a dignified way and I think it made a lot of Americans – religious believers of all stripes – feel inspired and proud."
Eventually, the Senate approved her nomination 55-43, with just three Democrats voting across party lines.
A self-described originalist, Barrett's tenure as an appellate judge has affirmed her conservative credentials. She authored a 2018 dissent arguing that convicted felons should not be barred from having guns. And while she has not issued a ruling yet on abortion, she has twice staked out positions aligned with the anti-abortion movement.
Prior to her judgeship, Barrett made a name for herself at Notre Dame Law School, also her alma mater. During her 2017 confirmation process, her Notre Dame Lawcolleagues penneda glowing – and unanimous – endorsement letter. More than 450former studentsalso advocated her confirmation.
She supplemented her time in the classroom – where she taught courses on federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation – with several scholarly articles on subjects ranging from Supreme Court precedent to due process.
In her scholarly work, Barrett has argued for Catholic judges to recuse themselves from death penalty cases, citing the "the moral impossibility of enforcing capital punishment," and suggested that legal precedent is susceptible to being overturned, leading critics to question how she would consider the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade. In 2013, Barrett was quoted in theNotre Dame student newspaperas saying that "it is very unlikely at this point that the court is going to overturn Roe [v. Wade]."
During the 2017 confirmation, Barrett walked back her position on the death penalty,telling senatorsthat she would not recuse "as a blanket matter" from capital punishment cases. On abortion, she stood by past comments that "abortion … is always immoral,"but added that, if confirmed, her "views on this or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of [her] duties as a judge."
A photo of Amy Coney Barrett, a potential Supreme Court nominee, hangs in the Hall of Fame of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 22, 2020.
Scrutiny of Barrett's faith has also extended to her personal affiliations, particularly her longtime ties to a Charismatic Christian community calledPeople of Praise.
The group encourages its more than 1,700 members to make a covenant to the community, and it also assigns younger members a personal mentor, known as a "head" or "leader." Until recently, women in those roles were referred to as "handmaids," which led some news outlets and commentators to speculate that People of Praise may have been the inspiration behind Margaret Atwood's famous novel, "The Handmaid's Tale." Both Atwood and People of Praise denied those claims.
Barrett has not spoken publicly about her involvement in People of Praise, and neither the group nor an aide to Barrett would comment on her current status with the organization. Critics suggest her ties to the community and a covenant many members make – which the group describes as "a promise of love and service we choose to make to one another" – may conflict with her oath to uphold the constitution. For its part, People of Praise denies that its practices would have any effect on a member's professional life.
Barrett's confirmation process is expected to be strained by the political pressure of a nomination and hearing so close to a presidential election.
Democrats have accused Republicans of hypocrisy in moving forward with a replacement for Ginsburg, who died last week with only 45 days before the November vote. In 2016, Republicans blocked President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, after Scalia's death more than 200 days before the election.
A native of Louisiana, Barrett attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., for undergraduate studies before earning her law degree summa cum laude from the Notre Dame in 1997. After graduating law school, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and then Scalia before a brief stint in private practice in Washington, D.C.
Her husband, Jesse Barrett, served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Indiana.
