Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 7th Circuit, is reportedly one of the top contenders for President Trump’s nomination to the seat vacated by the death of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg was the face of the liberal bloc on the Supreme Court, meaning that an appointment by Trump and confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate could potentially significantly shift the ideological balance of the court for years. Barrett’s record, including cases she’s ruled on during her time as an appeals judge and her scholarship as a law professor at Notre Dame, are set to be intensely scrutinized by the media and the Senate Judiciary Committee should Trump choose her.
Carrie Severino, the president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said that Barrett and the other women on the Trump shortlist may disagree with Ginsburg on the issues, but have the intellectual firepower to fill in for the late legal luminary.
“These are really impressive women,” Severino said. “They’re worthy of following in her footsteps.”
Those on the left, however, have said they worry that Barrett would undo precedents like Roe v. Wade and impose her faith on others.
Here are a handful of the notable stances Barrett has taken that might indicate the effect she could have on the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence.
Gun rights
Perhaps the most high-profile opinion Barrett has written is a dissent in Kanter v. Barr, a case that upheld a Wisconsin law taking gun rights away from non-violent felons. The majority opinion was written by Judges Joel Flaum and Kenneth Ripple, who were appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” Barrett wrote. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”
Read the rest at: SCOTUS
