Plea to Judge Barrett

Dear Judge Barrett,

The country has witnessed that you are an extraordinary jurist and person, who is superbly qualified to be a Supreme Court justice, and who can inspire the utmost trust in your goodness, humanity and integrity.

Our country is in dire straits. Our country needs you more than just as a Supreme Court justice.

Please listen to these two pleas.

FIRST PLEA

Can you give a response to the letter that more than 50 faculty members of your University of Notre Dame sent to you (which letter is at https://teacher-scholar-activist.org/2020/10/13/an-open-letter-to-judge-amy-coney-barrett-from-your-notre-dame-colleagues/ ). 

Please particularly respond to the following summation in the letter: 

Finally, your nomination comes at a treacherous moment in the United States. Our politics are consumed by polarization, mistrust, and fevered conspiracy theories. Our country is shaken by pandemic and economic suffering. There is violence in the streets of American cities. The politics of your nomination, as you surely understand, will further inflame our civic wounds, undermine confidence in the court, and deepen the divide among ordinary citizens, especially if you are seated by a Republican Senate weeks before the election of a Democratic president and congress. You have the opportunity to offer an alternative to all that by demanding that your nomination be suspended until after the election. We implore you to take that step.
We’re asking a lot, we know. Should Vice-President Biden be elected, your seat on the court will almost certainly be lost. That would be painful, surely. Yet there is much to be gained in risking your seat. You would earn the respect of fair-minded people everywhere. You would provide a model of civic selflessness. And you might well inspire Americans of different beliefs toward a renewed commitment to the common good.
We wish you well and trust you will make the right decision for our nation.

Regardless of what your response is, I think Americans will take heart in in your goodness, humanity and integrity, and that will help them in seeing their way through the dire straits that the country is in.

SECOND PLEA
A main component of our country's dire straits is that 350,000,000 Americans believe contradictory things about their President or do not know what to believe about their President, and these 350,000,000 Americans do not have one person of national standing to whom they are all willing to listen for guidance.

In the country's witnessing your potential to inspire the utmost trust in your goodness, humanity and integrity, you could be that person.

Moreover, for you to be that person would not take you out of the area in which you have expertise as a professor of law and a jurist.

In particular, upwards of 350,000,000 million Americans would listen to you if you talked to them along the lines of the following (subject to exactly how you would prefer to express yourself on the matter):

I am profoundly grateful to have been nominated to be a United States Supreme Court justice.

It has been suggested to me that your and my country is in dire straits and that 350,000,000 Americans believe contradictory things about their President or do not know what to believe about their President. It has been suggested to me these 350,000,000 million Americans do not have one person of national standing to whom they are all willing to listen for guidance, and that I could be that person. I don't know if I can be that person but I would like to say the following to you about matters as to which I have expertise as a professor of law and a jurist.

The United States constitution provides for the three branches of government of the legislative, the executive and the judicial. 

The legislative branch has the responsibility for making the law. The executive branch has responsibilities for implementing the laws that the legislative branch has enacted. The judicial branch is responsible for applying the law in legal cases that are brought before the judicial branch.

The three branches of government are separate and independent.

The independence of the three branches is not absolute, and there are limitations ("checks and balances") on the independence of the three branches.

The President is obligated to implement the laws that Congress enacts, and the President cannot act contrary to the laws the Congress has enacted or do things that are not authorized under the laws enacted by Congress. Under "checks and balances", both the Congress and the judicial branch have capacities to prevent the President from doing that, including through the power of the purse, the impeachment power, and the deciding of specific legal cases.

Also, there are practical necessities that allow for intrusion of one branch of government into another branch. The legislative branch needs information about how laws are being implemented by the executive branch and has powers to demand and get information from the executive branch.

This includes getting information about whether there are conflicts of interest in the executive branch that are causing the laws to be improperly implemented to advance private interests and resulting in laws not being implemented to achieve the public purposes of a law.

The ultimate check and balance under the constitution is the power of the people to vote out of office the President for any reason, including that the people believe the President is disobeying the laws Congress has enacted (whether or not Congress and the judicial branch have done anything to stop the President), and the power of the people to vote out of office members of Congress because the people want different laws or because the people believe that Congress has failed to keep the President from disobeying the law. 

I hope that saying the foregoing helps you to know what you believe about your and my President.

10/25/20

[Below is email I have sent to the contact person for the website where Notre Dame faculty letter was published]
From: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Sun, Oct 25, 2020 9:56 am
Subject: Notre Dame faculty letter to Judge Barrett Open Letter to Judge Amy Coney Barrett From Your Notre Dame Colleagues
Dear Professor Jensen,
I believe Judge Barrett owes it to the American people to respond publicly to the "Open Letter to Judge Amy Coney Barrett From Your Notre Dame Colleagues" dated October 10, 2020, which is published on your website at https://teacher-scholar-activist.org/2020/10/13/an-open-letter-to-judge-amy-coney-barrett-from-your-notre-dame-colleagues/.
I see that there are currently 550 thoughts (comments) posted underneath the open letter on your website.
I have put on my blog a "Plea to Judge Barrett" (which can be found at https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2020/10/plea-to-judge-barrett.html), in which I reference the Notre Dame faculty letter and request Judge Barrett to particularly respond to the following summation in the letter:

Finally, your nomination comes at a treacherous moment in the United States. Our politics are consumed by polarization, mistrust, and fevered conspiracy theories. Our country is shaken by pandemic and economic suffering. There is violence in the streets of American cities. The politics of your nomination, as you surely understand, will further inflame our civic wounds, undermine confidence in the court, and deepen the divide among ordinary citizens, especially if you are seated by a Republican Senate weeks before the election of a Democratic president and congress. You have the opportunity to offer an alternative to all that by demanding that your nomination be suspended until after the election. We implore you to take that step.

We’re asking a lot, we know. Should Vice-President Biden be elected, your seat on the court will almost certainly be lost. That would be painful, surely. Yet there is much to be gained in risking your seat. You would earn the respect of fair-minded people everywhere. You would provide a model of civic selflessness. And you might well inspire Americans of different beliefs toward a renewed commitment to the common good.

We wish you well and trust you will make the right decision for our nation.

I think it would have been entirely legitimate and appropriate for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to have called the Notre Dame letter to the attention of Judge Barrett and to have asked her to expressly respond to the summation part of the letter quoted above.
Even now I think the 47 Senate Democrats and Independents should send a letter to Judge Barrett and invite her to come to the Senate floor before the final vote and to please express her response to the letter for the benefit of both the United States Senate and the American people.
If Judge Barrett has expressed any response to the Notre Dame faculty letter, either in writing or orally, I think you should post Judge Barrett's response on the webpage underneath the letter and above the the thoughts (comments) section on the webpage.
After I send you this email, I will look at the 550 thoughts (comments) that are posted beneath the letter, I may post the body of this email as a thought (comment) on the webpage, and I will probably copy and paste this email on my above "Plea to Judge Barrett" blog entry.
Thank you for your attention to this email.

10/27/20
See also J'accuse our judiciary