SENATE CONFIRMS BARRETT AS JUSTICE GINSBURG’S REPLACEMENT

Judge Amy Coney Barrett will become the 115th justice of the Supreme Court (SC) but only the fifth woman to sit on its bench, Nicholas Fandos reported for the New York Times on Monday night, October 26, 2020 (Tuesday morning, October 27, 2020n Manila).

A divided Senate voted Monday night to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, capping a lightning-fast Senate approval that handed President Trump a victory only days before the election and promised to tip the court to the right for years to come. Barrett’s confirmation came years after Senate Republicans scuttled a rule maintaining a 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court must e met before a nominee is confirmed. 

Inside a Capitol mostly emptied by the resurgent coronavirus pandemic and an election looming in just eight days, Republicans overcame unanimous opposition by Democrats to make Judge Barrett the 115th justice of the Supreme Court and the fifth woman ever to sit on its bench. In a 52-to-48 vote, all but one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, who herself is battling for re-election, supported Judge Barrett, a 48-year-old appeals court judge and protégée of former Justice Antonin Scalia. 

It was the first time in 151 years that a justice was confirmed without a single vote from the minority party, a sign of how bitter Washington’s decades-old war over judicial nominations has become. The vote concluded a brazen drive by Republicans, who moved with remarkable speed to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg six weeks before the election. They shredded their own past pronouncements and bypassed rules in the process, even as they stared down the potential loss of the White House and the Senate.