{UAH} DEMOCRATS GOT A SUPRISE JUST BEFORE THE HEARING

American Bar Association gives Amy Coney Barrett thumbs-up just before confirmation hearings

by Becket Adams, Commentary Writer | 

October 12, 2020 11:51 AM

Senate Democrats have one more thing to worry about this week as they try to keep Judge Amy Coney Barrett off the Supreme Court. Late Sunday, on the eve of the first of several Senate confirmation hearings, the American Bar Association rated Barrett as "well qualified" for the court.

The organization's determination, which comes in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, should prove a headache for Democrats as they seek to make the argument that Barrett is decidedly unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

“The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has completed its evaluation of the professional qualifications of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has been nominated by the President to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,” the group said in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

The ABA, which is the largest lawyers advocacy group in the United States, previously awarded Barrett a “well qualified” rating in 2017 when she was nominated to serve on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“As you know, the Standing Committee confines its evaluation to the qualities of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament," the letter continued.

It concluded, “A substantial majority of the Standing Committee determined that Judge Barrett is ‘Well Qualified,’ and a minority is of the opinion that she is 'Qualified' to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. The majority rating represents the Standing Committee’s official rating.”

The letter will likely create a pain in the neck for Democrats, not just because the rating explicitly undercuts their anti-Barrett message but also because Democrats have made a big deal over the ABA's previous “not qualified" ratings for certain judicial nominees of President Trump.

They will look awfully silly ignoring the same group now that it has labeled Trump's third Supreme Court nominee as “well qualified.”

Selectively highlighting the ABA’s determinations threatens to reveal Senate Democrats for the shameless partisan operatives they really are. To be sure, Senate Democrats already do that on their own. The ABA rating, and Democrats' subsequent silence over it, merely makes it more obvious.

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