Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

 With elections coming up it seems appropriate to discuss the Presidential debates and Supreme Court Confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett which have shown to be extremely controversial. These hearings reflected how divided and partisan our country is and brings about a heightened sense of importance for the elections approaching in November. Many issues were talked about during the Supreme Court Confirmation hearings such as health care, abortion, gun control, immigration and climate change which all play a significant roll on individual rights and freedoms. What I witness for a supposed “bipartisan” position was completely the opposite as many senators made these hearings political and asked questions that seemed motivated by a political agendas. This is an important issue because by having partisan justices, laws could be changed, altered and struck down in favor of one parties agenda rather than based on the founding fathers views of the Supreme Court and the checks and balances system. With such a divide amongst varying parties the government has become more centralized as each party will see it through to achieve political promises. There isn’t any unity or common ground that politicians could stand on even for the sake of the constitution. There have been comments made about packing the courts and getting rid of the filibuster which imply there is no boundary politicians won’t cross if it means obtaining power. Amy Coney Barrett has maintained her political independence from political pressure and states she will remain unbiased and adhere to the rule of law. Many concerns are that Amy Coney Barrett will overturn the Affordable Care Act given President Trumps agenda to have the ACA overruled. On June 28^th, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the ACA, by a slim margin of a 5-4 vote. A single vote could have tipped the scale in the opposite direction declaring the ACA unconstitutional. According to Hayek and his views on the “rule of law”, laws should be general in nature and not be discriminatory in any way. The ACA is one of the most controversial laws because the ACA is not a general law and is discriminatory which is part of the reason why it boarders the line of constitutionality.  Again, Ms. Barret was pressed on her views on abortion, although she maintained a bi-partisan nature, controversial cases such as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were brought about in which she did not declare her viewpoints. Barrett did not state her opinions on climate change as well, although Kamala Harris among other senators made this a key talking point as they are in pursuit of the Green New Deal. Other controversial issues were talked about such as immigration policies and gun control policies. Although Supreme Court Justices are supposed to be above politics, given the questioning this did not appear to be the case because many senators seem to want to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a similar candidate because of her views on the ACA, abortion, among other controversial and political topics that could be altered or changed given someone with differing viewpoints on the constitution. Ms. Barret remained unbiased on not stating her opinions or viewpoints that leaned one way or another. Clearly, there needs to be unbiased Supreme Court system because this entirely strips away the Checks and Balances system, centralizes power to the political majority, and our lives as citizens and our freedoms will revolve around those that pass legislature and decide the constitutionality of laws. Every Democratic and Republican want to push through their policies and legislation through the House and Senate and want to ensure that it will be upheld constitutionally by the Justices. My worry is that if there isn’t some common ground that people could agree on amongst the people and politicians, there will be consequences to one party pursuing power at the expense of American freedom and democracy. These debates and Supreme Court hearings have revealed that there really is no limit or extent that politicians won’t go to in order to achieve their goals of winning. They want a biased house, and biased senate and a biased supreme court where party majority rules. Overall, these hearings have significant implications on freedoms and rights and revealed the magnitude of the upcoming elections. At this point the biggest threat to American democracy is extreme polarization and the disappearance of common values and principals that should be central to all Americans such as liberty and freedom