Supreme Court Nominee Amy Barrett Could Reshape Judiciary for a Generation

WASHINGTON, KOMPAS.com - President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court which could reshape the federal judiciary for a generation.

The US President shared that Barrett’s nomination will provide a needed boost in his reelection campaign.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia and said Saturday that she was “truly humbled” by the nomination.

She quickly aligned herself with Scalia's conservative approach to the law, saying his “judicial philosophy is mine, too".

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Barrett, 48, was joined in the Rose Garden by her husband and seven children. If confirmed by the Senate, she would fill the seat vacated by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It would be the sharpest ideological swing since Clarence Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall nearly three decades ago.

She would be the sixth justice on the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third of Trump’s first term in office.

Trump hailed Amy Coney Barrett as “a woman of remarkable intellect and character”, saying he had studied her record closely before making the pick.

Republican senators are lining up for a swift confirmation of Barrett ahead of the November 3 election, as they aim to lock in conservative gains in the federal judiciary before a potential transition of power.

Trump, meanwhile, is hoping the nomination will galvanize his supporters as he looks to fend off Democrat Joe Biden.

For Trump, whose 2016 victory hinged in large part on reluctant support from white evangelicals on the promise of filling Scalia's seat with a conservative, the latest nomination in some ways brings his first term full circle.

Even before Ginsburg’s death, Trump was running on having confirmed in excess of 200 federal judges, fulfilling a generational aim of conservative legal activists.

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Trump joked that the confirmation process ahead “should be easy” and “extremely non-controversial", though it is likely to be anything but.

No Supreme Court nominee has been considered so close to a presidential election before, with early voting already underway.

He encouraged legislators to take up her nomination swiftly and asked Democrats to “refrain from personal and partisan attacks”.

In 2016, Republicans blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill the election-year vacancy, saying voters should have a say in the lifetime appointment.

Senate Republicans say they will move ahead this time, arguing the circumstances are different now that the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will vote “in the weeks ahead” on Barrett’s confirmation.