Barrett Confirmed to U.S. Supreme Court
Amy Coney Barrett, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Credit: © Anna Moneymaker, Getty Images
On October 26, the American jurist (legal scholar) Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Barrett became the 115th justice and only the fifth woman to be appointed to the nation’s highest court. In September, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to fill a vacancy on the court created by the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg eight days earlier.
Barrett’s confirmation was contentious, in part because of the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for November 3. The confirmation process began only six weeks before Election Day, and Democrats argued that the seat should not be filled until after Americans cast their votes. On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama had nominated Merrick Garland to the court. The Republican-controlled Senate at the time had refused to consider the nomination, arguing then that it was too close to the 2016 election, some 7 1/2 months away, to consider Garland. Many of the same Republicans voted to confirm Barrett in 2020.
Democrats expressed their opposition through voting—not a single Democratic senator supported Barrett’s confirmation. Republicans celebrated her nomination, with only Senator Susan Collins of Maine voting against it. Barrett’s confirmation gave conservatives a firm 6-3 majority on the court.
Court observers have described Barrett as a conservative judge. She has consistently ruled conservatively on such issues as abortion rights, gun control, and immigration. She has criticized the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Barrett describes herself as an originalist, meaning that she believes the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted as it was originally meant to be understood.
Amy Vivian Coney was born on Jan. 28, 1972, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. She received a bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and a J.D. degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1997. After graduating, she served as a law clerk for Laurence H. Silberman, a judge serving on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. She then served as law clerk for the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She married Jesse Barrett in 1999.
Also in 1999, Amy Coney Barrett began working as an associate for private practice law firms in Washington, D.C. She became an adjunct faculty member and fellow in law at the George Washington University Law School in 2001. In 2002, Barrett joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as a law professor. President Trump nominated her to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is a federal court that makes legal judgments for the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
