Supreme Court nominee and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 21, 2020.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
A federal prosecutor on Friday removed her name from consideration for a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court after blowback from legislators over a 2017 letter she signed in support of Amy Coney Barrett, who is now a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s nomination of Sandra Slack Glover had floundered in recent days due to her prior backing of Barrett for a seat on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals — five years before Barrett provided a vote on the U.S. Supreme Court to end the federal right to abortion.
The right to abortion is codified in Connecticut law. The state expanded access to abortion on the heels of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer in the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Glover, who called herself a staunch defender of abortion rights, said Monday during her confirmation hearing at the Connecticut Senate Judiciary Committee that she was “naive” and “wrong” to have signed the letter in support of Barrett.
“Looking back and knowing what I now know, I shouldn’t have signed it,” Glover testified about the letter, which was signed by every U.S. Supreme Court clerk who worked during that court’s 1998-99 term.
At the time, Glover was a clerk that term for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Barrett was a clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Glover said Monday that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 overturning the 50-year-old abortion rights case Roe v. Wade “wrong and egregiously so.”
“Speaking as a woman, it was horrifying,” testified Glover, who is the head of the appellate division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Connecticut.
“All of us should have a constitutional right to control our reproductive freedom and our bodies,” she testified. “My belief in this is firm and unwavering.”
Despite her statements that day, key Democratic and Republican members of the Judiciary Committee predicted on Tuesday that her nomination would not be approved, the news site CTMirror.com reported. The committee had declined to vote on her nomination after the seven-hour hearing on Monday.
“I don’t really see a path forward for this particular nominee,” said Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, top Republican on the committee, according to CTMirror. “The votes aren’t even close to double digits in her favor.”