No one can accuse Amy Coney Barrett of grandstanding. President Donald Trump’s nominee to the US Supreme Court has been quizzed in Senate hearings this week, but to little effect. On climate change (“I don’t think I am competent to opine”), voting by mail (“I can’t express a view”) and the constitutionality of Obamacare (“I’m just here to apply the law”), the judge and scholar is discreet to a fault. Democratic senators scold her reluctance to be drawn on the big issues.
In a sense, Ms Barrett is more than within her rights. Judges are there to rule on the specific cases that come before them. In an ideal system, broad statements of policy are for elected politicians or media commentators.
The trouble is that America does not have an ideal system. Its highest court is so mixed up in politics that it almost constitutes a third legislature. In few countries are “liberal” and “conservative” judges so identifiable as such. Ms Barrett would not even have been considered for nomination had she not cleared the tests of the Federalist Society and other Republican groups. It is a tad disingenuous, then, to evade questions of substance now. The Senate should expect at least as much candour as her ideological vetters.