Murkowski, in a Turnabout, Says She Will Vote to Confirm Barrett - The New York Times

The iconoclastic Alaska Republican said she remained opposed to filling the Supreme Court seat so close to an election but could not hold that against a qualified nominee.

WASHINGTON — Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who has vocally opposed filling the vacant seat on the Supreme Court so close to an election, said on Saturday that she would nonetheless vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett next week.

They already had the votes they needed to confirm Judge Barrett, President Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, but Ms.

The development came as a divided Senate slogged through another day of debate over Judge Barrett, 48, an appeals court judge whose confirmation would lock in a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the court.

“Moving forward on a nominee just over a week removed from a pitched presidential election when partisan tensions are running about as high as they could — I don’t think that this will help our country become a better version of itself,” she said.

Murkowski said she came away impressed and concluded she was unwilling to punish a qualified nominee because her party insisted on moving ahead.

Trump’s last nominee to the Supreme Court, Justice Brett M.

Murkowski now risks stirring up a backlash from the left, which believes Judge Barrett’s confirmation threatens those very issues.

Murkowski made only glancing comments to abortion rights or the Affordable Care Act during her floor speech, but they suggested she had been reassured by Judge Barrett about how the two issues would fare by the nation’s highest court in the future.

She said she also discussed with the nominee the issue of “severability,” a legal doctrine that could lead to the preservation of the Affordable Care Act when the Supreme Court hears a challenge seeking to invalidate it just after the election

“I do not believe Judge Barrett will take her seat on the bench with a predetermined agenda or with a goal of putting a torch to every volume of the United States Reports,” she said, referring to the official bound volumes of Supreme Court opinions