On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 48.
The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana
to be an associate justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States is confirmed.
Republicans have cemented
their conservative majority
with Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation
to the Supreme Court on Monday.
The institution has evolved over the years.
It was designed to uphold the Constitution
and keep the president and Congress in check.
But critics say it is turning into a political tool.
We take a look at what issues are at stake
and what it means for the country.
We could lose 50 years of precedent
around civil rights and equal rights in this country
that we've been fighting for,
everything from the Voting Rights Act to the ACA,
which gives health insurance to 21 million people
in this country, and they could lose it.
There's only one Earth!
Let's fight for what it's worth!
There are going to be
a series of cases, most likely this term,
that are going to deal with climate change,
and this is an administration that already has tried to,
and successfully, chip away most of our advancements
that we've made around climate.
Also, there are 17 cases in the pipeline
around reproductive health.
We know that part of the strategy
around a conservative court
is to try to reverse Roe versus Wade.
That's the landmark ruling
liberals are most worried about.
For nearly half a century,
it has given women the right to abortion,
but it could now be overturned.
In fact, the Supreme Court has reversed
almost 300 of its own decisions since its inception.
Should the court go that far,
I think that there would actually be revolt.
I think that we are seeing now a population
that is tired of oppression.
We're seeing that with the racial justice uprisings.
I think we'd see something very similar around Roe.
You know, Roe is an old precedent.
It's got a lot of history.
There are justices who, you know, respect that history,
so I don't expect any radical change.
I think the court's approach to the legal issues
that underlie Roe has been carefully incremental
and I would expect that to continue.
But Roe has been challenged several times,
and Barrett's mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia,
was in favor of overturning it.
The closest thing to an opportunity, I guess,
to overturn Roe v. Wade was Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Regardless of whether you think
prohibiting abortion is good
or whether you think prohibiting abortion is bad,
regardless of how you come out on that,
my only point is the Constitution
does not say anything about it.
So my father's point wasn't that
abortion should be banned nationally.
My father's point was that
the Constitution is silent on that,
meaning it's left in the hands of the states
to make those decisions.
Scalia was on the opposite end
of the ideological spectrum
from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who fought for women's rights.
Despite their politics,
at the end of the day, they were good friends.
It's likely that if that collegiality is gone
that the court will suffer.
I don't know that it necessarily means
that opinions will suddenly be shoddy or anything like that,
but I think that one of the reasons
Americans trust the Supreme Court
and the judicial branch generally
more than the other branches of government
is because they sense that collegiality.
I am a lawyer who believes in the courts,
and believes in the history of the court,
of how it has protected and advanced rights
for oppressed people.
I do think now it's very hard to ignore
that the court is becoming a political body.