I watched most of the Senate hearing on confirming Amy Coney Barrett (ACB) . I was frustrated that many untruths spoken by the Democrats were not sufficiently refuted. Hence this blog.

One Senator said that nominating and holding a hearing to confirm ACB was an act of “raw political power.” This implied the hearing was wrong because the word “raw” per Webster’s dictionary means unbridled or unrestrained. Others said it was illegitimate. The President is following the restraints of the US Constitution. Article 2 section 25 states that the President, which Trump is until at least January 2021, SHALL nominate and the Senate SHALL advise and consent to a new justice to the Supreme Court when there is an opening. That is it. There are no other conditions for when to nominate someone or that the wishes of a beloved, recently deceased justice should be considered when finding her replacement, as several Democrats suggested. The people have elected Trump to nominate justices. This was not an “illegitimate” hearing.

The Democrats also tried to say that this would be court packing which is incorrect. The hearing was to confirm a replacement so the number of justices would stay at nine, which has been the number for over 150 years. Packing the court would mean adding to this number. The Democrats are still upset that a confirmation hearing for Obama appointee Judge Garland was not held four years ago. Still this does not make the Barrett hearing wrong.

The Democrats tried to appeal to the unfounded fears, supposed ignorance, and other negative emotions of American citizens by making misleading arguments and lying. They know they can because the main stream media will probably not debunk what they say or show the Republicans pointing out their falsehoods.

One Democrat produced a list of settler cases and said that if ACB were confirmed, all of them would be in jeopardy of being overturned. If ACB is confirmed, she would not be able to overturn any of these cases on her own just because she wanted too. The whole court would have a vote, and this would only happen if someone from the public decided to relitigate a case that was brought from the lower courts on appeal. It is doubtful that this would happen in most cases.

However, one case that will come to the court after ACB is confirmed will involve the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare. The Democrats repeatedly tried to scare the public by suggesting that they could be denied healthcare or not have insurance after ACB’s vote on the case. They stressed that coverage of pre-existing conditions, especially Covid 19 since we are in a pandemic, would not be covered.

First of all, it is not certain that any part of Obamacare would be struck down with the court’s judgement. Second, both the President and Republicans have said several times that they would continue to cover pre-existing conditions as part of replacement legislation. It is irresponsible for the Democrats to get people all riled up over these false claims. Furthermore, they failed to mention that striking down Obamacare would not mean having no healthcare or insurance. The issue would go back to Congress to draft new legislation that would be better and constitutional.

When speaking against terminating Obamacare, Democrats played on the public’s sympathy by showing pictures of sick children who would not be able to afford their life-saving healthcare if not for the ACA. They failed to mention the millions of people in the last 2 or 3 years who have become uninsured because of the unaffordable ACA. In an CMA.gov article entitled “Thank Obamacare for the Rise of the Uninsured” from 9/13/2019, author Seema Verma says that according to the US Census Bureau, the number of uninsured people since the passage of the ACA has increased by 40% from 2016-2018. The plans under the ACA become too expensive for people who did not qualify for government subsidies such as those with middle to higher incomes.

Premiums have doubled from 2013 to 2017 and went up another 26% in 2018. People are making more money due to Trump’s economic policies which causes more to be denied subsidies. This makes Premiums too expensive. Also, deductibles have increased substantially. My sister had to drop her insurance due to the expense. My brother-in-law used to pay over $1,000.00 a month. Seema gave an example of a couple in Nebraska making $70,000 a year which is slightly more than the amount allowed to get a subsidy. So under ACA, they would have to pay $38,000 a year, that’s half their income, for a silver plan plus an $11,100 deductible each year before Obamacare would pay for anything. No wonder many people have chosen to take their chances with no insurance instead of paying these outrageous charges. But what do they do if they have a catastrophic health emergency?

A witness against ACB tried to knock her philosophy of originalism and textualism when judging the constitutionality of laws. The witness said that originalism means judging the constitution as originally written when ratified in 1787. She said this means that the civil rights of minorities would not be considered. This is not true. Originalism means original intent. The Founders original intent as written in the text allows for amendments to make changes. She did not mention the 27 amendments added after ratification that include freedom for slaves and voting plus other civil rights for blacks and other minority citizens as well as for women. ACB would look at these amendments as well when judging cases.

The bottom line is Congress is supposed make the laws and if passed and later contested up to the Supreme Court, the Court is to judge whether the laws are to be struck down as unconstitutional. Then the issue would go back to the U.S. Congress to re-legislate. Or many issues should be decided by the state legislatures per the 10th amendment. Democrats have been unconstitutionally bypassing the amendment process to pass laws or counting on the Supreme Court to legislate from the bench when they can’t get them passed by voting on them like they are supposed to. The amendment process is long and difficult, but it does rightly include the citizenry approving laws through their elected representatives instead of unelected justices. The U.S. is a republic, after all.