Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Wednesday attempted to assure the Senate Judiciary Committee that she is "not hostile" to the Affordable Care Act, which has become a focal point for Democrats during Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Barrett about her prior criticisms of the high court's rulings that upheld the ACA, including her 2017 assertion that Chief Justice John Roberts "pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute" in 2012. Barrett didn't explicitly refute that critique, but she tried to differentiate between her opinion on the court's legal decision and any personal views on the policy itself.
"I think that your concern is that because I critiqued the statutory reasoning that I'm hostile to the ACA, and that because I'm hostile to the ACA that I would decide a case a particular way, and I assure you that I am not," Barrett told Durbin, adding that she is not hostile to "any statute that you pass." Tim O'Donnell
The Week
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