Hirono commits to avoiding ‘irrelevant’ questions about Barrett’s religion during her confirmation hearing

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) committed on Sunday to avoid asking “irrelevant” questions about Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s religion during her confirmation hearing this week.

The Hawaii Democrat told CNN’s “State of the Union” that questions about Barrett’s Catholicism are “immaterial” and “irrelevant.”

“Her religion is immaterial, irrelevant,” she said. “That is what I said. And so that is my position. I am totally focused on what this nominee sitting there as a justice is gonna do in striking down the Affordable Care Act. That’s what I’m focused on.” 

{mosads}“I’m not gonna be asking her questions about her religious views,” she added. “They’re irrelevant.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Hirono if she thinks her Democratic colleagues will “bring up her faith or religious views.”

“I think it’s the Republicans who are going to bring up that particular issue,” she said. “Why? Because they don’t want to face up to the fact, they don’t want to tell the American people that they’re about to vote for a person who’s going to take away their health care.”

Tapper pointed out that when Barrett was being confirmed for her current position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Democrats like Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) brought up her religion. 

Hirono said Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also “asked about her writing.”

“So the writing of a nominee that you get asked, so we ask. I ask, and that’s it,” the senator said.

Barrett’s confirmation hearings are set to begin this week in an attempt to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court before Election Day that was left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month.