Pete Buttigieg delivered a powerful response to Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s opening statement ahead of her U.S. Senate confirmation hearings.
Barrett, a social conservative with a history of anti-LGBTQ statements, was nominated by Donald Trump to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat.
LGBTQ advocates have warned that she will attempt to “dismantle” LGBTQ rights and Democrats have described Republican attempts to jam through her nomination before the election as “shameful.”
Ahead of the confirmation hearings, which began today, Oct. 12, Barrett issued the transcript of her opening statement to the Senate, and said that courts “have a vital responsibility to enforce the rule of law.”
“Courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life,” she added. “The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the People. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.”
Barrett’s words echo those of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who recently argued that the Supreme Court had bypassed the democratic process in its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
Her opening statement transcript was released while Buttigieg, the openly gay former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and former Democratic presidential candidate, was giving an interview on MSNBC’s AM Joy.
Buttigieg was speaking about National Coming Out Day, but was asked to give his opinion on Barrett’s statement, Out reports.
“This is what nominees do,” Buttigieg said. “They write the most seemingly unobjectionable, dry stuff. But really what I see in there is a pathway to judicial activism cloaked in judicial humility.”
He continued: “At the end of the day, rights in this country have been expanded because courts have understood what the true meaning of the letter of the law and the spirit of the constitution is. That is not about time-traveling yourself back to the 18th century and subjecting yourself to the same prejudices and limitations as the people who write these words.
“The constitution is a living document because the English language is a living language. And you need to have some readiness to understand that in order to serve on the court in a way that will actually make life better,” Buttigieg said.
“It was actually Thomas Jefferson himself who said that ‘We might as well ask a man to still wear the coat which fitted him when he was a boy as expect future generations to live under’ — what he called — ‘the regime of their barbarous ancestors,'” Buttigieg added.
“So even the founders that these kind of dead hand originalists claim fidelity to understood better than their ideological descendants — today’s judicial so-called conservatives — the importance of keeping with the times. And we deserve judges and justices who understand that.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg leads a new poll of Democratic voters in New Hampshire -- the first state in the presidential primary process -- emerging as the early favorite in a hypothetical 2028 race.
Buttigieg leads a crowded field of younger Democrats who were sidelined when former President Joe Biden opted to seek re-election. Biden ultimately ended his campaign just months before Election Day, hampered by concerns over his age -- 81 at the time -- and questions about his mental sharpness.
According to the University of New Hampshire's Granite State Poll, Buttigieg -- who ran for president in 2020 before joining Biden's Cabinet -- earned 19% support in the hypothetical Democratic primary.
My first protest, as my mother tells it, was as a toddler. In our Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, circa 1970, she was moved to join a small group in opposition to some new construction. As she was moved, so was I, on four stroller wheels. My birth may have coincided with the weekend of the Stonewall Riots, but I didn't learn about that till much later.
And, of course, I have no memory of this inaugural outing with Mom to fight the power. Today, my mother looks at current events, disgusted by the White House, and wonders aloud whether protests such as the Oct. 18 No Kings Day actions across the country and beyond do much. At her age, she's certainly entitled to be winding down. Not that she was ever big on protests to begin with -- my first was her last, possibly her only.
The summer of 1985, I turned 16. In Belgium. While I lived primarily in rural, red Florida, summers sometimes had me staying with Dad's family. At the time, my Army father was assigned to the American embassy in Brussels. With $100 in American Express "travelers' cheques," our go-to global currency of the time, it was a thrilling summer.
In Florida, I would've spent those months mopping floors or working the grill at a mall job. Instead, I had urban mass transit and could drink in bars. Granted, my Euro '80s summer was more Depeche Mode than anything as explicit as Call Me By Your Name. Though virginal, at least I passed for something seedier one afternoon.
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