As Barrett hearings start, most in poll think RBG seat should be filled after election
Kicking off days of testimony by Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Senate Judiciary Committee will being its confirmation hearing Monday. Ahead of the hearings, a majority of Americans in a new poll said they think the seat should be filled after the election.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll found 52% said Ginsburg’s seat should be filled by the winner of the presidential election and that the Senate should vote next year. Forty-four percent said the Senate should vote on Barrett’s nomination now.
The poll was conducted Oct. 6-9 with a sample size of 879 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Eighty-three percent of Democrats want to wait until after the election to fill the seat while 77% of Republicans want it to be filled now. Around half of independents favor waiting, a drop from a poll conducted in September.
An ABC/Post poll, released Sept. 25 before Trump nominated Barrett, found 57% of Americans said filling the seat should be delayed while 38% supported Trump filling the vacancy.
Critics of Barrett have expressed concern that her confirmation would lock in the conservative majority on the high court, saying that may put laws surrounding health care and abortion at risk of being overturned.
Six in 10 voters in the recent ABC/Post poll say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion without restrictions in the first trimester, while 24% said they want it overturned.
Barrett signed an ad in 2006 that called for overturning Roe v. Wade and its “barbaric legacy,” The Guardian reported. The ad ran in The South Bend Tribune and used a quote from Justice Byron White’s dissent from the ruling that called the decision “an exercise of raw judicial power.” Barrett initially didn’t disclose the ad or other anti-abortion talks she participated in to the Senate committee, but she later added them to her questionnaire documents after the news reports, CNN reported.
Barrett would be the third justice on the court nominated by Trump and will deliver her opening statement on Monday, followed by two days of questioning from senators. Republicans are hoping to approve her nomination and to hold a vote before Election Day.
Democrats, including 2020 presidential nominee Joe Biden, asked Senate Republicans to wait until after the election to fill Ginsburg’s seat, citing what happened in the run-up to the 2016 election, according to ABC News.
In 2016, McConnell and Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama from appointing Merrick Garland to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat. Garland never received a confirmation hearing. At the time, McConnell said Scalia’s death, which happened Feb. 2016, was too close to an election and that voters should decide who fills the seat, leaving a vacancy for 10 months under Obama.
But now, with Ginsburg dying less than two months from Election Day, McConnell said that rule doesn’t apply this year because both the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party, drawing backlash from Democrats and Obama.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 9:10 AM with the headline "As Barrett hearings start, most in poll think RBG seat should be filled after election."