Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in on Monday as the US Supreme Court’s new justice, filling a vacancy left by the passing of the legendary Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and further bolstering the nine-member bench’s conservative majority.
Barrett was confirmed by the US Senate earlier in a 52-48 vote, with one Republican voting against.
“A judge declares independence not only from Congress and the president, but also from the private beliefs that might otherwise move her,” Barrett said in brief remarks after being sworn in at a late evening White House ceremony with President Donald Trump.
Barrett’s admission to the court gave conservatives a 6-3 majority on the nine-judge bench, which, many Democrats fear, puts in peril key issues such as abortion and affordable health care.
Democrats also worry that Barrett could tilt the scale in favour of the president if he were to challenge the outcome of the November 3 election.
He has been raising false alarms about large-scale fraud in anticipation of an adverse outcome and he has refused to commit himself to accepting the verdict.
At the swearing-in ceremony, President Trump said, “It is highly fitting that Justice Barrett fills the seat of a true pioneer for women: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Tonight, Justice Barrett becomes not only the fifth woman to serve on our nation’s highest court, but the very first mother of school-aged children to become a Supreme Court justice.”
Barrett is the mother of nine children, many of them still in school. At 48, she will be the youngest justice on the court and has been a judge on the seventh circuit court of appeals since 2017, also as a Trump nominee.
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