{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.coons.senate.gov/news/press-releases/video-sen-coons-barrett-confirmation-may-launch-a-new-chapter-of-conservative-judicial-activism-unlike-anything-weve-seen-in-decades", "[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: Barrett confirmation \u2018may launch a new chapter of conservative judicial activism unlike anything we\u2019ve seen in decades\u2019", "2020-10-14", "2020", "2020-10", "Democrat", "House", "DE", "Christopher Coons", "C001088", "www.coons.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON  Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a\r\nmember of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Judge Amy Coney Barrett,\r\nPresident Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, on her views on upholding legal\r\nprecedent. Senator Coons announced that he will vote against Judge Barrett's\r\nconfirmation to the Supreme Court. Sen. Coons\r\nsaid, My core concern here, Your Honor, is that your confirmation may\r\nlaunch a new chapter of conservative judicial activism  unlike anything we've\r\nseen in decades. The point of the chart was to show we've mostly been talking\r\nabout the Affordable Care Act and privacy-related cases, but if that's true, it\r\ncould touch virtually every aspect of modern American life. I pray that I'm\r\nwrong. I hope that I am. But, in my reading of your work, nothing has\r\nalleviated my grave concerns that rather than building on Justice Ginsburg's\r\nlegacy of advancing privacy, equality, and justice, I'm concerned  in fact \r\nthat you will take the Court in a very different direction. So with all due\r\nrespect, I will be voting against your confirmation, Your Honor. See Senator Coons' chart presentation here. Audio and video is available here.\r\nAdditional excerpts are provided below. On Judge\r\nBarrett's nomination, Sen. Coons said, President Trump did not nominate\r\nyou to carry on Justice Ginsburg's legacy. He nominated you because he wants to\r\nundermine or change or shift that legacy, and he's been very clear repeatedly\r\nbefore you were chosen about his intent to nominate justices in the mold of\r\nJustice Scalia. On previous\r\nSupreme Court cases, Sen. Coons asked, If Justice Scalia had had his\r\nway, we'd be in a very different country with regards to gender discrimination.\r\nIn one of Justice Ginsburg's most celebrated decisions in 1996 in the case\r\ninvolving Virginia Military Institute, she struck down their male-only\r\nadmissions policy. Decades later, VMI honored Justice Ginsburg in recognition\r\nof the contributions its female alumni have made. Justice Scalia was the sole\r\ndissenter in that case and even accused the Court of destroying VMI which\r\nremains standing and strong to this day. I'm just getting at how closely you\r\nwould ally yourself with Justice Scalia's jurisprudence. Would you agree with\r\nJustice Scalia that Justice Ginsburg's decision in VMI was wrong? On Judge\r\nBarrett's views on judicial restraint, Sen. Coons asked, In the 2017\r\narticle in the University of Minnesota in Constitutional Commentary \r\nthat's been referenced before  you said, and I'm quoting, about modern\r\noriginalists, that they have abandoned the claim one should be an originalist\r\nbecause originalism produces more restrained judges.' Do you stand by that\r\ncharacterization? On court\r\nprecedents, Sen. Coons said, [T]he larger challenge here is not what\r\nyou have said about your views on cases, but what the president who has\r\nnominated you has said about his goals and his objectives for your service on\r\nthe Court. And frankly, my concern about originalism and an activist\r\nwillingness to reconsider precedent is that in combination, Justice Scalia's\r\nviews often expressed in sharply worded  memorable, memorable  dissents may\r\nmake for great academic reading, but I think most Americans don't expect them\r\nto become the law of the land. And in a long line of cases, they would overturn\r\nwell-settled precedent that I think we have all come to expect. ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.coons.senate.gov/news/press-releases/video-sen-coons-barrett-confirmation-may-launch-a-new-chapter-of-conservative-judicial-activism-unlike-anything-weve-seen-in-decades"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.1112458780407906, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}