For Those Not Present... Confirmation Hearing for Justice Amy Coney Barrett

A Play in One Terrible Act

By: Michael LaFond, 2020 US Senate Judiciary Committee

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

On October 15, 2020, three weeks before the election, the US Senate Judiciary Committee met for the fourth day of the hearing considering the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for associate justice of the US Supreme Court for the purpose of filling the seat left vacant by the recently deceased liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Republicans were exploiting their majority to push through the fast-tracked appointment before the November 3 election. Democrats were opposing the nomination that would flip the Supreme Court position on many issues, which the Republicans could not enact through the legislative process, most significantly on legal abortion and the ACA (Obamacare) and election decisions for Donald J. Trump. This appointment would clearly entrench the Supreme Court as an extreme right-wing institution and sway rulings for decades towards a religious, authoritarian, and corporate agenda.