Washington — Judge Amy Coney Barrett returned Wednesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the second day of questioning in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The second round of questioning lasted around nine hours, and was significantly shorter than the marathon nearly 12-hour day of questioning on Tuesday.
Each of the 22 senators on the committee were allotted 20 minutes to pose their questions, rather than the 30 minutes they had on Tuesday. Democrats have pressed Barrett to explain her views on challenges to the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade and the upcoming election, should the Supreme Court have to weigh in.
Barrett has refused to indicate how she might judge cases that come before the high court, a time-honored tactic that has been deployed by Supreme Court nominees of both parties. She has been careful to say that declining to answer “doesn’t suggest disagreement or agreement” with how a ruling was made.
Democrats pushed Barrett on how closely her jurisprudence would follow that of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, since Barrett has said they share the same judicial philosophy. She reiterated that while both believe in the theory of originalism, interpreting the Constitution based on the Founders’ intentions, she would not necessarily decide cases in the same manner.
“I assure you I have my own mind. Everything that he said is not necessarily what I would agree with or what I would do if I was Justice Barrett,” Barrett said of Scalia.
Barrett also declined to directly answer questions on hot-button topics, such as whether the president could unilaterally deny the right to vote, whether racial discrimination existed in voting, or whether climate change existed.
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