Constitutional Hardliner Amy Coney Barrett Likely Next Trump Pick

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Originally posted on September 24, 2018.

At Reason, Damon Root asks if Amy Coney Barrett would be Trump’s next Supreme Court pick if Brett Kavanaugh were to drop out. Root writes (abridged):

What happens if Supreme Court nominee Brett Cavanaugh drops out of consideration, or is voted down outright by the U.S. Senate, over the sexual assault allegations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford? What does President Donald Trump do then? Specifically, who does Trump pick to replace Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy?

One name among the rumored finalists on Trump’s SCOTUS shortlist jumps out as a likely contender. That name is Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

Barrett, 46, was confirmed to the 7th Circuit just last October after an extremely contentious confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As Barrett argued in a 2013 Texas Law Review article, given the sharply competing interpretive methodologies on the current Supreme Court, “a more relaxed form of constitutional stare decisis is both inevitable and probably desirable, at least in those cases in which methodologies clash.” She added: “I tend to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it.” Statements like that from Barrett will be music to the ears of anti-Roe activists.

In short, if the Kavanaugh nomination falls apart, Trump has a ready replacement whose elevation will undoubtedly thrill many of his supporters on the right.