Amy Coney Barrett

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Amy Coney Barrett
Image of Amy Coney Barrett

Nonpartisan

Supreme Court of the United States
Tenure

2020 - Present

Years in position

4

Prior offices
United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Education

High school

St. Mary's Dominican High School, 1990

Bachelor's

Rhodes College, 1994

Law

Notre Dame Law School, 1997

Personal
Birthplace
New Orleans, La.

Amy Coney Barrett is an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She was President Donald Trump's (R) third nominee to the court. Trump nominated Barrett on September 29, 2020, following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.[1] The U.S. Senate confirmed Barrett on October 26, 2020, in 52-48 vote.[2] All Republicans except U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) voted to confirm Barrett, while no Democrats did so.[3] Barrett was 48 when she was confirmed.[4]

Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997, and was the only justice on the court without a Harvard or Yale law degree at the time she was confirmed.[5] She taught law at Notre Dame from 2002 to 2017, when Trump appointed her to the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.[6][7]

During her confirmation hearings, Barrett said, "If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and I’m a faithful Catholic — I am, although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge.”[8]

Barrett clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in 1998, and later said: "His judicial philosophy is mine too: A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”[9] Scalia, a conservative member of the court, defended a form of originalism, a legal principle that relies on historical review of the intent of a law or constitutional provision at the time of passage.[10]

An analysis of the political leanings of all nine justices in 2023 ranked Barrett as the fourth most conservative.[11]

In 2022, Barrett voted with the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case in which the court ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion. She also voted with the conservative majority in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, in a ruling that the federal government and the states possess overlapping jurisdiction to prosecute crimes on Indian reservations, and Carson v. Makin, finding Maine violated the Constitution when it excluded private religious schools from a state-funded tuition program.[12][13]

Barrett has broken from her conservative colleagues in some cases, including in VanDerStok v. Garland, in which Barrett, along with John Roberts, joined the liberal bloc in a 5-4 ruling to temporarily maintain federal regulations on gun kits purchased over the internet.[14] In 2024, Barrett joined Roberts in voting with the liberal bloc to reverse a lower court ruling that blocked the federal government from removing razor wire the Texas National Guard placed at the border to hamper border crossings.[15][16]


Professional career

Early life and education

Barrett was born in 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She graduated from St. Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans in 1990. She earned her bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in English literature from Rhodes College in 1994 and her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. She was awarded the university's Hoynes Prize, which is the law school's highest honor. She also served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.[18]

Approach to the law

Barrett has explained her judicial philosophy as originalist—interpreting the U.S. Constitution according to what the words meant to the individuals that wrote it—and textualist—interpreting a law based on the words on the page, not what Congress may have intended to do when the law was passed.[20] According to FiveThirtyEight's Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, Barrett was one of the most conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.[21]

Martin-Quinn score

Barrett's Martin-Quinn score following the 2023-2024 term was 0.68, making her the fourth-most conservative justice on the court at that time. Martin-Quinn scores were developed by political scientists Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn from the University of Michigan, and measure the justices of the Supreme Court along an ideological continuum. The further from zero on the scale, the more conservative (>0) or liberal (<0) the justice. The chart below details every justice's Martin-Quinn score for the 2023-2024 term. These are preliminary scores provided by Kevin Quinn that may differ slightly from the final version of the scores that Martin and Quinn will make publicly available at a later date.

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Congress.gov, "PN2252 — Amy Coney Barrett — Supreme Court of the United States," accessed September 30, 2020
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 CBS News, "Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court," October 26, 2020
  3. ↑ Politico, "Senate confirms Barrett to Supreme Court, sealing a conservative majority for decades," October 26, 2020
  4. ↑ U.S. News & World Report, "Amy Coney Barrett and the Makeup of the Courts," October 28, 2020
  5. ↑ Bloomberg, There's a Lot of Harvard and Yale on the Supreme Court. And That's OK.," August 7, 2022
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 United States Congress, "PN 369 — Amy Coney Barrett — The Judiciary," accessed October 31, 2017
  7. ↑ Notre Dame Law School, "Amy Coney Barrett," accessed April 15, 2021
  8. ↑ Associated Press, "Her words: Amy Coney Barrett on faith, precedent, abortion," October 11, 2020
  9. ↑ Congressional Research Service, "Judge Amy Coney Barrett: Her Jurisprudence and Potential Impact on the Supreme Court," October 6, 2020
  10. ↑ William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, "Justice Scalia’s Bottom-Up Approach to Shaping the Law," accessed February 29, 2024
  11. ↑ Axios, "The political leanings of the Supreme Court justices," July 3, 2023
  12. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "In 5-4 ruling, court dramatically expands the power of states to prosecute crimes on reservations," June 29, 2022
  13. ↑ Columbia University, "Carson v. Makin Echoes Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue," accessed February 29, 2024
  14. ↑ Slate, "The Big Question Behind Amy Coney Barrett’s Surprise Vote on Ghost Guns," August 8, 2023
  15. ↑ Newsweek, "Amy Coney Barrett Under Fire for Siding With Biden on the Border," January 22, 2024
  16. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "Justices Allow Removal of Texas’ Razor Wire on US-Mexico Border," January 23, 2024
  17. ↑ Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin LLP merged with Baker Botts LLP in 2001.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Senate Judiciary Committee, "Questionnaire for judicial nominees," accessed September 28, 2020
  19. ↑ Oyez, "Amy Coney Barrett," accessed April 8, 2021
  20. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Who is Amy Coney Barrett?" September 28, 2020
  21. ↑ FiveThirtyEight, "What Kind Of Supreme Court Justice Will Amy Coney Barrett Be?" October 26, 2020
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Federal Judicial Center, "Barrett, Amy Coney," accessed September 28, 2020
  23. ↑ Senate Judiciary Committee, "Results of Executive Business Meeting," October 22, 2020
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 The White House, "President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States," September 26, 2020
  25. ↑ American Bar Association, "Ratings of Article III and Article IV judicial nominees," accessed October 12, 2020
  26. ↑ American Bar Association, "Ratings of Article III and Article IV judicial nominees," accessed April 20, 2020
  27. ↑ CNN, "Trump to announce Supreme Court nominee," September 26, 2020
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 The White House, "Remarks by President Trump Announcing His Nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States," accessed April 15, 2021
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  30. ↑ CBS News, "Trump says Justice Kennedy's replacement will come from list of 25," June 27, 2018
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 New Civil Liberties Alliance, "NCLA Ranks the Short List of Candidates to Replace Justice Kennedy," July 6, 2018
  32. ↑ New Civil Liberties Alliance, "About the Organization," accessed July 9, 2018
  33. ↑ The White House, "President Donald J. Trump Announces Five Additions to Supreme Court List," November 17, 2017
  34. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Stat Pack for the Supreme Court’s 2020-21 term," July 2, 2021
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Empirical SCOTUS, "2023 Stat Review," July 1, 2024
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 Empirical SCOTUS, "Another One Bites the Dust: End of 2022/2023 Supreme Court Term Statistics," November 16, 2023
  37. ↑ Due to a change in the 2020 stat pack format, the agreement rate uses the rate of agreement in judgment.
  38. ↑ Due to a change in the 2021 stat pack format, the agreement rate uses the rate of agreement in judgment.
  39. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "2020-21 Stat pack: Frequency in the majority," July 2, 2021
  40. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named OT21
  41. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "OT18 Frequency in the Majority," accessed July 3, 2019
  42. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named sbot21
  43. ↑ United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, "Illinois Republican Party v. Pritzker: Complaint," June 15, 2020
  44. ↑ WTTW, "Illinois GOP Sues Gov. Pritzker Over Ban on Large Gatherings," June 16, 2020
  45. ↑ United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, "Illinois Republican Party v. Pritzker: Order," September 3, 2020
  46. ↑ United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, "Illinois Republican Party v. Pritzker: Opinion and Order," July 2, 2020
  47. ↑ Law360, "7th Circ. Keeps Illinois' COVID-19 Quarantine Order Afloat," September 3, 2020
  48. ↑ Washington Post, "Supreme Court leaves in place laws in Chicago, Pennsylvania that restrict antiabortion protesters," July 2, 2020
  49. ↑ Justia, "Price v. Chicago, No. 17-2196 (7th Cir. 2019)," accessed September 23, 2020
  50. ↑ Duke Center for Firearms Law, "Dangerous, Unvirtuous Felons and the Scope of the Second Amendment," May 29, 2019
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 SCOTUSblog, "Profile of a potential nominee: Amy Coney Barrett," September 21, 2019
  52. ↑ Justia, "Kanter v. Barr, No. 18-1478 (7th Cir. 2019)," accessed September 23, 2020
  53. ↑ Justia, "Doe v. Purdue University, No. 17-3565 (7th Cir. 2019)," accessed September 23, 2020
  54. ↑ City Journal, "Returning Due Process to Campus," July 17, 2019
  55. ↑ Washington Post, "Amy Coney Barrett, potential Supreme Court nominee, wrote influential ruling on campus sexual assault," September 20, 2020
  56. ↑ The Indiana Lawyer, "7th Circuit’s reasoning in Purdue sex misconduct case getting nod," September 2, 2020

Political offices
Preceded by
- 		Supreme Court of the United States
2020-Present		 Succeeded by
-
Preceded by
- 		United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
2017-2020		 Succeeded by
-


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