Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed to the Supreme Court.

 

Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings. NPR/Getty.

The Senate has voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as the latest justice to join the Supreme Court in a 52-48 vote. NPR. Senate Democrats had attempted to delay the vote but with a GOP lead in seats they were unable to do so. The vote was among party lines with only Senator Susan Collins of Maine, facing a difficult reelection battle, breaking ranks. Democrats are furious with the move since the election is just eight days away and because the GOP refused to hold hearings for Obama's replacement for Antonin Scalia, Merrick Garland, when his seat became available when Obama was a lame duck. Barrett is 48 and will help insure that the conservatives on the court have a majority for a long time. 

My Comment:

As expected Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The only way that would not have happened is if at least 4 GOP senators had balked at voting for her. Only one did, Susan Collins of Maine. The other three squishy Senators, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Corey Gardner, all ended up voting for Barrett in the end. 

So what does this mean? It means that the Supreme Court will actually have a conservative majority. We did not have that before today. We had three strong liberals, four strong conservatives and John Roberts, supposedly a conservative but who often votes with the liberals. Now we have five strong conservatives who can outvote John Roberts when he wants to go liberal. 

This should have a major impact on upcoming cases and will likely lead to some huge victories. The biggest winner of this confirmation is probably America's gun owners. John Roberts famously blocked many of the court cases that were pending on gun rights and the other four conservative justices said that they wouldn't take cases because they thought Roberts would vote against them. That is no longer a problem and it should mean that we should be seeing a roll-back of America's most draconian gun laws. 

The confirmation will likely affect the 2020 election. This is going to be hugely demoralizing for the Democrats who only have pipe dreams of stacking the court, which isn't realistic at all, to try and counter the victory. Republicans are going to be thrilled and will turn out for President Trump after his third court nomination. 

And it also means that any election cases, like the infamous 2000 election, will be decided by a court that is in theory supportive of the President. Though I doubt that scenario will happen now that President Trump seems to be catching up even in the famously biased polling, it is still a comfort to know that any voter scams won't happen now that the court will likely overturn any shenanigans. 

The hearings went a lot smoother then a lot of people expected. I think this was due to how badly the tough Brett Kavanaugh hearings went for the Democrats. People hated what was done to Kavanaugh and if they had tried to do that to Barrett not only would it have made little sense as Barrett is a woman, it would have infuriated the electorate. 

Finally, I have to say that the Democrats complaints here are pretty much idiotic. You can't tell me that if Hillary Clinton was President right now and the Democrats had the Senate, they wouldn't replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Indeed, the media would be crowing about it. Their anger here isn't because the Republicans did anything wrong but because the Republicans are winning...