Barrett Says She’s ‘Not Hostile’ To ACA; Confirmation Hearings End Today

AP: Barrett Back On Capitol Hill For Senators' Final Questions
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett returns to Capitol Hill for a third day of confirmation hearings as senators dig deeper into the conservative judge’s outlook on abortion, health care and a potentially disputed presidential election — the Democrats running out of time to stop Republicans pushing her quick confirmation. Wednesday’s session is set to be Barrett’s last before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has been batting away questions in long and lively exchanges, insisting she would bring no personal agenda to the court but decide cases “as they come.” (Mascaro, Sherman and Kellman, 10/14)

On the subject of the Affordable Care Act —

Modern Healthcare: Barrett Insists She Is Not ‘Hostile' To ACA
As senators on Tuesday grilled Judge Amy Coney Barrett over her views on the Affordable Care Act during the second day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Barrett repeatedly said she had no goal to repeal the healthcare law. Democrats have made Barrett's criticism of an opinion Chief Justice John Roberts wrote upholding the ACA a key tenet of their argument against Barrett's nomination, saying that her confirmation before oral arguments in a case that could determine the fate of the ACA on Nov. 10 could mean invalidation of the entire statute, including protections for patients with preexisting conditions. (Cohrs, 10/13)

The Hill: Barrett: No Precedent Protects Affordable Care Act From Pending Challenge 
Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday said a pending challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which the Supreme Court will consider on Nov. 10, is not affected by past rulings by the court upholding the health care law. Barrett said Chief Justice John Roberts’s landmark ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, which upheld the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 decision, does not protect the law from being struck down over the issue now pending before the high court. (Bolton, 10/13)

The Hill: Barrett Says She Did Not Strike Down ObamaCare In Moot Court Case 
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said she did not strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but did find its individual mandate unconstitutional in a recent moot court case, while stressing her actions in the moot court case did not actually reflect how she might rule on ObamaCare if confirmed to the high court. Barrett, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has faced withering criticism from Democrats who say she will vote to overturn the signature Obama-era health care law in an upcoming case regarding the ACA that the high court will hear on Nov. 10, one week after the election. (Axelrod, 10/13)

The Washington Post: Takeaways From Day 2 Of Amy Coney Barrett’s Hearing 
Barrett said the job of the justices is to decide whether the law can still stand without a tax mandate — by “severing” it from the rest of the law — or whether that’s legally impossible. She said she would consider the real-world consequences of her decision and what she thought Congress intended those consequences to be when Republicans fundamentally changed how the mandate works. “I’m not hostile to the ACA,” she said. (Phillips, 10/13)

On the subject of abortion —

The Hill: Barrett Says She Doesn't Classify Roe V. Wade As Superprecedent 
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said Tuesday that she did not consider Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling establishing a woman’s right to an abortion, as a superprecedent, meaning a decision so widely accepted that it is invulnerable to serious legal challenges that could see it overturned. Barrett said during the second day of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing that she defined superprecedent as cases that are “so well settled that no political actors” or other people are “seriously pushing for its overruling.” (Hellmann, 10/13)

The Washington Post: On Roe V. Wade, One Amy Coney Barrett Exchange Was Telling 
Amy Coney Barrett has been something of a stone wall in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. She has resolutely declined to weigh in on anything that might come before the court. But she has also demurred on whether a president can unilaterally delay an election (it’s pretty clear President Trump can’t) and whether voter intimidation is a federal crime (it is). But after hours of pulling teeth, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) might have moved the needle a bit. (Blake, 10/13)

The Hill: Harris Raises Alarm On Abortion Rights While Grilling Barrett 
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) told Amy Coney Barrett [Tuesday] that her nomination to the Supreme Court poses a serious threat to abortion rights, signaling that women’s reproductive freedom will emerge as a significant issue in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign. “Anti-choice activists and politicians have been working for decades to pass laws and file lawsuits designed to overturn Roe and the precedents that followed. The threat to choice is real,” Harris said during her 30 minutes of question time at Barrett’s second day of confirmation hearings. (Bolton, 10/13)

And regarding the presidential election —

The New York Times: Barrett, Declining To Detail Legal Views, Says She Will Not Be ‘A Pawn’ Of Trump 
Judge Amy Coney Barrett flatly refused on Tuesday to pledge that she would recuse herself if a dispute over the Nov. 3 election came before the Supreme Court, insisting that despite her nomination by President Trump, she would not “allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people.” ... “I have not made any commitments or deals or anything like that,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee on her second day of confirmation hearings. “I’m not here on a mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act. I’m just here to apply the law and adhere to the rule of law.” (Fandos, 10/13)