This column by ACRU General Counsel Ken Klukowski was published September 18, 2017 by Breitbart.

WASHINGTON, DC — The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) has launched a ten-day ad campaign bringing public awareness to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) calling a judicial nominee’s strong Roman Catholic faith a “concern” regarding that nominee’s fitness to serve as a federal judge.

President Donald Trump nominated Professor Amy Coney Barrett of Notre Dame Law School to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Barrett is regarded as a brilliant legal scholar who formerly served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Like Scalia, Barrett is also a faithful Catholic.

People across the political spectrum expressed outrage when Feinstein declared during Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that it was a “concern” that Catholic “dogma lived loudly in [Barrett],” insofar as Barrett’s faith relates “to big issues.”

Leaders running the gamut from acclaimed Professor Robby George (a devout Catholic), to Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) (a committed Evangelical) to Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber (not affiliated with any Christian denomination) have sharply criticized these comments, citing the Constitution’s Religious Test Clause, which commands that a person’s faith can never be cited as a reason to deny that person a federal office.

JCN is perhaps the leading organization dedicated primarily to getting originalist judges confirmed to the federal courts. The public-interest advocacy group has launched a ten-day advertising campaign over the growing scandal, expecting that heightened public awareness will help break Democratic obstruction of President Trump’s judicial picks.

“This is going to be known as Feinstein’s Folly,” JCN Chief Counsel Carrie Severino said of the hard-hitting television ad. “Her line of questioning reeked of ‘No Catholics Need Apply,’ while ignoring Professor Barrett’s stellar qualifications, experience, and fierce commitment to defending the Constitution.”

A JCN statement accompanying the launch lambastes Feinstein’s questioning of Barrett’s faith as “anti-Catholic bigotry.”

“Feinstein was fundamentally at odds with our constitutional commitment to religious freedom,” Severino continued, explaining the impetus behind the six-figure campaign. “A nominee’s faith should have nothing to do with his or her qualifications to be a federal judge. Period.”