Old North News

North Carolina Republican Party county leaders are showing their support for the latest U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett. 

"Justice Barrett is not only the right choice — she is a logical choice," Robeson County Republican Party Chairman Phillip Stephens told the Old North News. 

Barrett, 48, was appointed in 2017 to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, was sworn in on Oct. 26, as the 115th associate justice — and only the fifth woman — to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Her credentials are stellar, her judicial temperament is exactly what this court needs and the fact that so many of her colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, have provided a 'full-throated' endorsement of her [is] amazing," Harnett County Republican Party Chairwoman Maggie Sandrock told the Old North News. "I feel that she will be an excellent addition to the court."

Her swearing-in followed the U.S. Senate's 52-to-48 vote to confirm Barrett, a week before the General Election and approximately four years since Senate Republicans refused to consider then-President Barack Obama's nominee, saying it was too close to the election.

"The Senate and the president should not abrogate their responsibilities just because they are at the end of an election cycle," Sandrock said. "Justice Ginsberg, herself, indicated the same."

Ginsburg wanted the next president to make the appointment to fill her seat.

Republicans at all government levels, including Sandrock and Stephens, have defended the quick appointment and the change in tune by GOP senators.

The Senate's confirmation came 30 days after Barrett's nomination to the nation's highest court by President Donald Trump to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"Sure you could see it being problematic if the Executive Branch and Senate were controlled by separate parties before an election," Stephens said. "But the responsibility of the president to make an appointment does not have a time limitation. He is president for four years."