What to know about Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee
Amy Coney Barrett’s upcoming confirmation hearings are likely to have more impact than her potential appointment.
Here is a look at Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this month. Who is she and what sort of Justice will she make?
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Amy Coney Barrett would fill a vacancy created by the recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and give the court a durable conservative majority. With 38 days to go before the Nov. 3 election, Barrett’s confirmation process also has political implications for this year’s presidential and Congressional races.
“Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and talented legal minds to the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.” Trump said on Saturday, US time. “She is a woman of unyielding loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.”
Barrett, 48, currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and is based in Chicago. President Trump nominated her to the bench in May 2017 and the Senate confirmed her on Oct. 31, 2017.
She graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia from 1998 to 1999. Like Scalia, Barrett has described her legal philosophy as originalist, meaning that she believes laws should be interpreted based on the perspectives of the people who wrote them at the time. Barrett has taught law at Notre Dame Law School since 2002.
Barrett’s past legal opinions on business-related questions are few, but giving the Supreme Court a larger conservative majority would suggest a more business-friendly and anti-regulation tilt. Cases coming before the court in the term that begins Oct. 5 include a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” requiring all Americans to have health insurance. Farther down the road, potential antitrust cases against several big tech companies, including Alphabet (ticker: GOOGL), Facebook (FB), and Amazon.com (AMZN), could come before the court. Barron’s previewed the court’s coming term in a recent feature.
Decisions in cases dealing with business-related issues tend to be driven less by ideology and more by the cases’ individual merits, says Tom Block, Washington policy strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors.
“From a business perspective, she’s made very few decisions,” he says of Barrett. “And social conservatism often doesn’t play much of a role in deciding business cases. She’s smart and she’s an academic, and how she comes down on a business case will depend on how well lawyers argue it.” Block sees the political implications of Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings as likely more impactful to business and markets than her potential appointment to the Supreme Court. The televised proceedings will get plenty of attention, and could influence how voters turn out on Nov. 3, with control of the presidency and the currently Republican-controlled Senate on the line.
California Senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris sits on the Judiciary Committee and likely will be closely watched by voters during her questioning of Barrett.
“She was an aggressive questioner during the Kavanaugh hearing, and now being a vice presidential candidate makes her even more of a celebrity,” says Block. “It’s an opportunity for her to excel or to have a faux pas, so there’s going to be a lot of attention on her performance.” Block also notes that three Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee are in toss-up reelection races, and will have a chance to shine or flop before voters during their questioning. They are committee chair Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
“Unless Judge Barrett makes a big mistake, she’s very likely to be confirmed,” says Block. “But the questioning at these hearings could be as important from a political point of view.” Democrats need to pick up a net four seats to gain a Senate majority. If the Senate is tied, the vice president casts the deciding vote.
The Wall Street Journal
