Dear Friend,

Writing about Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, The New Republic’s Alex Pareene says: “The entire charade is insulting to the intelligence of any reasonably well-informed viewer,” adding that “no detail of Amy Coney Barrett’s biography matters, really, more than her work for George W. Bush’s legal team in the contested 2000 election. Bush v. Gore was raw partisanship lightly draped in legal justification.”

TNR staff writer Matt Ford points out that “Barrett declined to say whether voter intimidation violated federal law, which it unambiguously does,” and “she refused to support the peaceful transition of power in the upcoming election.”

TNR’s Melissa Gira Grant says the “nominee would have us believe she’s just a vessel for the law, but her rise to conservative power tells the real story … given how much precedent Republicans are willing to blow past to confirm her nomination. And even if this was a fair fight, convincing anyone that Barrett is who she presents herself to be isn’t the intention. It’s meant to lend others around her plausible deniability, to claim she doesn’t have an agenda and, by extension, neither do they.”

The New Republic’s coverage of Barrett’s nomination is extensive, and we’re not afraid to draw conclusions about the behavior of Senate Republicans and their conservative funders, or to offer solutions about how to deal with them.

And we have a special offer to let you try our brand of journalism during this important election season: Get three months of unlimited digital access to The New Republic for just $5!

From staff writer Kate Aronoff: “Traditionally, climate has been thought about in the realm of so-called social issues, floating above supposedly meatier subjects like trade and the economy. Neither the Koch brothers nor the Federalist Society tend to see it that way, and thanks to her training, Amy Coney Barrett probably won’t, either.” 

Writing for TNR, Simon Lazarus wrote this about the Democrats on the committee: “They did not challenge the accuracy, let alone the sincerity, of the substance of her critiques of past Supreme Court decisions upholding the ACA, nor did they cast doubt on her assurances that, in the pending case, her vote would be driven by fidelity to legal text, not by political or policy-based hostility to the law. That should change.” 

Lazarus offers this challenge: “If Democrats harbor any hope of advancing an agenda under a Biden presidency, they need to cure themselves of this allergy to political messaging and put the remaining days of Barrett’s confirmation to good use, arming the public with the means to start generating a public backlash against the GOP’s judicial designs.”

This election season is the perfect time to read Kate Aronoff, Matt Ford, Melissa Gira Grant, Simon Lazarus, Alex Pareene, and the best investigative reporters, opinion writers, and cultural critics in America.

Subscribe to The New Republic today.

Sincerely,

Kerrie Gillis, publisher

Read Kate Aronoff’s The Supreme Court Was Designed to Kill Climate Policies
Read Matt Ford’s Amy Coney Barrett and the Death of the Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing
Read Melissa Gira Grant’s Amy Coney Barrett’s Gentle Deceptions
Read Simon Lazarus’s The Dishonesty of Amy Coney Barrett’s “Textualist” Pose
Read Alex Pareene’s Supreme Court Justices Are Politicians, Too