INSIDE THE AMY CONEY BARRETT HEARING
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent

Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing made history before it began: the closest ever to a presidential election and the first held in a Senate otherwise shutdown by a pandemic. Here is a look inside the proceedings so far:

The room

• The hearing is set in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, the largest committee room on the Senate side. Imagine a very fancy high school gym ... for some reason, with desks. 
• Who was there? Most of the 22 senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee were there Monday and Tuesday, while some video-conferenced in. Barrett came with roughly 16 staffers and family members. Twelve reporters and seven still photographers and roughly 20 to 30 Senate staffers made up the rest of the attendees Monday. 
• I went yesterday for a very interesting two and a half hours and together with our editors (and my family), we decided that was plenty and it was best for me to cover the rest of the hearing from home.  

Coronavirus and precautions

• Two senators on the committee, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., were diagnosed with the coronavirus 11days ago . Both say the attending physician has cleared them as no longer contagious and are attending the hearing in person.
• The attending physician at the U.S. Capitol and the architect of the Capitol, who oversees the building and grounds, measured out the distance between each seat.
• To space things out there is an additional set of tables for senators. The upper dais, as usual, and a lower dais, which some Senate staffers refer to as “the kids’ table.” (More senior senators sit on the upper one.)
• A “sanitation station,”  with wipes and hand sanitizer, is in between each senator.  
• Masks are available if anyone needs one.
• Who is wearing masks? Good question. Nearly everyone in the room has been wearing masks except when speaking. Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has kept his mask off whether speaking or not. At the beginning of the first day, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, also went without her mask for an extended period.

Democrats’ strategies and priorities

• “A sham.”  Democrats are painting the decision to hold the hearing as hypocritical of Republicans, who refused to even consider a Supreme Court nominee in early 2016 because it was an election year but changed their tune when it came to considering a Republican president’s nominee. This sense of both the past and the politics involved has led to some strategic decisions.
• A platform. Democrats decided to use the hearings as a platform to voice their concerns about Barrett’s record and President Donald Trump’s agenda, which they say he expects her to advance from the bench. They are resigned to the fact that Republicans appear to have the votes to confirm Barrett, but see this as an opportunity to contrast their agenda and Republicans’ ahead of a pivotal November election.
• United message. Democrats have been united and disciplined in their messaging, focusing largely on the Affordable Care Act and abortion access, both of which have come under attack by the Trump administration and Republicans. The Supreme Court has taken up both issues the past few years and could rule on them again in the near future. 
• Depicting Barrett as outside the norm or “extreme.” Democrats aren’t questioning Barrett’s qualifications. But they do want to present her views as outside the judicial norm, and her “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution as something that could topple key legal precedents. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters today he wants to convey that she is “radical” and “extreme” in her views.

Republicans’ strategies and priorities

• Barrett as independent. At the top of Republicans’ messaging list is to stress the idea that Barrett is independent. GOP senators have routinely asked if her personal views, particularly her religious views, could affect her rulings, giving her the opportunity to repeatedly assure them they won’t.   
• Barrett as an exceptional legal mind. A golden moment for Republicans came when Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked what materials she had in front of her. Judge Barrett held up an empty notepad. It was a visual of what Republicans have stressed - that Barrett has a razor-sharp mind, capable of recalling complicated cases and legal arguments instantly.
• Framing opposition as an attack on Barrett’s religion. Republicans understand that this hearing could have some bearing on the election, and are hoping it might win over some suburban women, including Catholic women. With that in mind, they have tried to characterize Democrats as attacking Barrett’s faith It’s worth noting that Democrats have been very careful not to raise Barrett’s faith as a line of questioning, though have at times walked a narrow line in asking whether her personal views affect her legal rulings.
• Barrett as sympathetic. As often happens in Supreme Court hearings, the president’s party works to paint the nominee as a sympathetic, even likeable, person. In Barrett’s case this has led to some Republican senators asking about whether she speaks other languages or plays instruments as well as directly asking about her multiracial family and being an adoptive parent. 

• Attentive posture. Barrett is unflinchingly physically poised. Her posture is straight and attentive and she rarely moves. She looks directly at senators and keeps a similar expression whether the questioning is friendly or combative.
• Ruling on law, not policy. One of Barrett’s two key strategies is to stress her philosophy that judges do not make policy, that they only rule on how to apply that policy when it is disputed in court.
• No hints, no previews, no forecasts.  Like other modern Supreme Court nominees, Barrett came into the hearing with a clear approach: to not indicate how she would rule on any future cases. She invoked the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s own words at her nomination hearing in 1993, saying she would give no forecasts or hints about how she might rule -- as a matter of judicial ethics, Barrett argued. The approach meant Barrett refused to answer a number of probing questions from Democrats who were looking for indications of how she sees key issues ahead for the court. But Ginsburg still spoke openly about certain hot button issues during her confirmation, including abortion, a topic Barrett has refused to address despite numerous questions about Roe v. Wade.