Byciewicz’s opposition to “extreme MAGA judges” puts LG in bind over Lamont’s pick for top court. Glover supported Barrett for federal bench.
Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz is raising money for state Democrats by sounding the alarm over “extreme MAGA judges.” The Middletown Democrat and three-time gubernatorial hopeful warns in a Wednesday email, “One month ago, an extreme, right-wing judge single-handedly overturned the FDA’s decades-old approval of the abortion pill. This unprecedented judicial overreach threatens all Americans’ access to legal and safe medication, even in states like our where abortion is legal.”
Bysiewicz warns before asking for a contribution to state Democrats, “Even though Connecticut protects access to abortion, extreme MAGA judges could upend everything.”
The second-term lieutenant governor might want to have a word with Governor Ned Lamont. He stated his intention to nominate Assistant United States Attorney Sandra Glover to the open seat on the state Supreme Court. Lamont’s announcement was made before the Judicial Selection Commission had approved Glover for the high court. That is said to have been remedied at an April 28th meeting of the commission in which the hurried Glover nomination was once more a write-in on the secret agenda.
Glover was an enthusiastic supporter of Amy Coney Barrett when she was nominated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals by Donald Trump in 2017. Glover joined other lawyers who had served as Supreme Court clerks with Barrett in a letter proclaiming the conservative then-law professor in the high court bullpen possessed many virtues.
The former clerks wrote,
“We worked closely with Professor Barrett during our year clerking at the Court. We had the opportunity to observe her approach to the law and her interactions with others during our intense and challenging joint endeavor supporting the work of the Court. Based on our observations, we came to respect Professor Barrett’s conscientious work ethic, her respect for the law, and her remarkable legal abilities. She conducted herself with professionalism, grace, and integrity. But perhaps as importantly, she treated with courtesy everyone who worked at the Court and she was able to work collaboratively with her colleagues (even those with whom she disagreed) on challenging legal questions. She is smart, honorable, and fair-minded; all good qualities for a Circuit Court Judge.”
Because Barrett was dubbed long ago as a conservative favorite one day to win a Supreme Court nomination, her views were widely examined and commented upon before her 2017 nomination–and Glover’s letter. Susan Glasser and Peter Baker write in their book on the Trump administration, “The Divider”, that Barrett was “a hero of anti-abortion conservatives” in 2018 when Trump had his second Supreme Court vacancy to fill. He chose Brett Kavanaugh, Glasser and Baker report, and told Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, “I’m going to save Barrett for Ginsburg,” in the event the ailing justice left the Court before his term ended.
Bysiewicz, who made a famously short-circuited bid for attorney general in 2010, by now ought to know about Glover’s enthusiastic support of Barrett–and that Barrett was long a conservative favorite. None of this was a secret in 2017–and events have confirmed them.
Published May 3, 2012.