Senate vote advances Barrett's nomination; confirmation to high court expected Monday

Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett during day two of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Capitol Hill on Oct. 13. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman
Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett during day two of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Capitol Hill on Oct. 13. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman

WASHINGTON -- Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court cleared one more hurdle in her confirmation to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Democratic senators ramped up their criticism of the conservative judge.

Senators voted in a rare Sunday session, 51 to 48, to advance her nomination. The final confirmation vote for Barrett is expected tonight, just eight days before the election and a month to the day after she was chosen.

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Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined united Democrats in an attempt to filibuster President Donald Trump's nominee to protest a decision they say should be left to the winner of the presidential election. But Republicans had the simple majority they needed to move the confirmation process forward.

Republicans are expected to win back Murkowski's vote today, though not that of Collins. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, the Democratic nominee for vice president, spent Sunday campaigning and did not vote.

"We made an important contribution to the future of this country," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday, praising Barrett as a "stellar nominee" in every respect. "A lot of what we've done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come."

At the start of Trump's presidency, McConnell engineered a Senate rules change to allow confirmation by a majority of the 100 senators, rather than the 60-vote threshold traditionally needed to advance high court nominees over objections.

Barrett is Trump's third nominee to the Supreme Court. If confirmed, the 48-year-old jurist would solidify a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the court for years to come.

Democrats, powerless to stop her confirmation, have cast the process as a power grab by Republicans eager to rush the nomination days ahead of the election. They repeatedly warned that Barrett is a threat to health care for millions of Americans, abortion rights and gay rights.

Republicans planned to keep the Senate in session overnight to speed things up further. Thirty hours must elapse between the vote to limit debate and final confirmation, and Democrats would not agree to recess.

The specter of the coronavirus pandemic loomed again over Barrett's nomination as several aides close to Vice President Mike Pence, including his top staffer, tested positive for the novel coronavirus even as Pence made clear his intention to attend this evening's confirmation vote.

"As vice president, I'm president of the Senate. And I'm going to be in the chair because I wouldn't miss that vote for the world," Pence said Saturday night at a campaign rally in Tallahassee, Fla., shortly before the disclosure of the fresh covid-19 outbreak within his staff. "Come this Monday night, Judge Amy Coney Barrett is going to be Justice Amy Coney Barrett. We're going to fill that seat."

A spokesman for the vice president's office did not respond to inquiries Sunday as to whether Pence planned to attend the vote for Barrett, who hails from Pence's home state of Indiana. Pence is regularly summoned to the Capitol to preside over major votes for the administration, or if he needs to break a tie.

McConnell, who has been highly critical of how the White House has not abided by public health guidelines on its property, on Sunday declined to answer multiple times whether he preferred that Pence stay away from the Capitol for the confirmation vote.

While Pence has had close contact with Marc Short -- his chief of staff who tested positive for the virus -- aides said the vice president will not quarantine and will instead continue with his scheduled events because he is considered essential personnel.

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PENCE CRITICIZED

That decision had some immediate repercussions at the Capitol on Sunday, while handing Democrats another opportunity to criticize the White House's handling of the pandemic and the Republicans' determination to confirm Barrett above seemingly all else.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., warned his ranks to limit their time in the Senate chamber amid news of the fresh outbreak on Pence's staff, as well as some reports of infections in the offices of Republican senators. The Democratic side of the Senate chamber remained mostly empty during the key procedural vote Sunday, as Democrats voted from doorways or quickly flashed a thumbs-down toward the floor staff before leaving.

In a floor speech, Schumer criticized the White House, noting that the coronavirus task force -- which Pence officially leads -- not only "failed to keep the American people safe, it has even failed to keep the White House safe."

"The vice president, who's been exposed to five people with covid-19, will ignore CDC guidelines to be here tomorrow, putting the health of everyone who works in this building at risk," Schumer said. "It sets a terrible, terrible example for the American people and nothing could be more a metaphor for what's going on here."

Various senators have announced sporadically that they either tested positive or were exposed to someone who was, or have had aides who have been diagnosed with the deadly virus. The most recent example was Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., whose office said Saturday that two of her aides tested positive but that the senator herself had been negative for the coronavirus, which causes the illness covid-19.

Asked Sunday whether she had close contact with those aides -- which, under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, would require a 14-day quarantine -- the senator said, "Not at all."

Republican senators played down any potential risk that Pence's physical presence may pose in the Capitol today, and none publicly advised the vice president to rethink his decision to attend the proceedings.

"I mean, we don't need his vote," said Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D. "But if he wants to come, I assume they're coordinating closely with all the medical professionals, and I assume he tests daily."

Pence is indeed tested regularly, and his office said Saturday night and Sunday morning that he and his wife, Karen Pence, were negative for the coronavirus.

"Mike's responsibility is to be here to preside over the Senate. I think the vice president will think he'll do that safely," said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. "Most certainly, I think he's a very responsible individual and I think he will do it according to the best practices as recommended by the physician."

Most senators wear masks, have ordered most of their staff members to work remotely and at least try to keep their distance from one another in the Capitol.

But several steps of Barrett's confirmation process have been undeniably tied to the pandemic. A Sept. 26 Rose Garden event to announce her nomination to the Supreme Court has been deemed a superspreader event, as several attendees tested positive for the coronavirus in its immediate aftermath.

That included Trump, first lady Melania Trump and at least two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, who were forced into quarantine until the start of Barrett's confirmation hearings. Some senators participated in at least part of Barrett's hearings remotely as they either recovered from the virus or had been exposed to people who were diagnosed.

And Democrats repeatedly tied the pandemic to their overall strategy to fight Barrett's confirmation, which was a health care-centric message as she prepares to sit on the bench ahead of Nov. 10 oral arguments on the fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"You wonder why we're coming to the floor with these speeches late on a Sunday afternoon?" said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Referring to people who have benefited from the 2010 health care law, he added: "Because these people asked us to. They asked us to come and stand up for them and say what they can't say on the floor of the Senate. That's why we're here in the midst of a pandemic."

BARRETT

At 48, Barrett would be the youngest justice on the bench, poised to put an imprint on the law for decades to come. An appeals court judge in Chicago and a Notre Dame law professor, she has been presented as an heir to former Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering figure of the court's conservative wing for decades. Barrett clerked for Scalia and shares his strict judicial philosophy.

By pushing for Barrett's ascension so close to the Nov. 3 election, Trump and his Republican allies are counting on a campaign boost, in much the way they believe McConnell's refusal to allow the Senate to consider President Barack Obama's nominee in February 2016 created excitement for Trump among conservatives and evangelical Christians eager for the Republican president to make that nomination after Scalia's death.

Barrett presented herself in public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a neutral arbiter and at one point suggested, "It's not the law of Amy." But Barrett's past writings against abortion and a ruling on the Affordable Care Act show a deeply conservative thinker.

"She's a conservative woman who embraces her faith, she's unabashedly pro-life but she's not going to apply 'the law of Amy' to all of us," said the committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., late Saturday on Fox.

Democrats have also used the nomination to fire up their liberal base before Election Day, highlighting Trump's promise to appoint justices who would chip away at or overturn abortion rights enshrined by the court in Roe v. Wade, as well as the upcoming challenges to the Affordable Care Act.

Information for this article was contributed by Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post; by Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; and by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Meg Kinnard and Becky Bohrer of The Associated Press.

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