How to Get Amy Coney Barrett to Say What She Really Thinks

[dalton99a]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/13/how-to-get-amy-coney-barrett-to-say-what-she-really-thinks-429270

How to Get Amy Coney Barrett to Say What She Really Thinks
Democratic senators have been stonewalled by Barrett’s refusal to talk about important cases. Here are four ways they might get better answers.
By KIMBERLY WEHLE
10/13/2020 07:55 PM EDT
Kimberly Wehle is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

If she achieved nothing else, Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday displayed her skills as a law professor. Under gentle questioning by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), she explained important and complex legal concepts like originalism, textualism, standing to sue and “living constitutionalism.”

But when she was pressed by Democratic senators on specific cases related to hot-button issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and Obamacare, Barrett retreated behind a shield of what she called a “judicial canon” that allegedly precludes her from commenting on certain categories of cases. She was not entirely consistent, however, in how she applied that rule. She eschewed any discussion of abortion rights and Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act, for example, but was happy to weigh in on Second Amendment law and the need, in her words, for First Amendment law to become “better organized.”

After hours of what amounted to a series of “no comments” from Barrett, the public is no wiser about how Barrett’s views, which she has expressed on occasion in law review journals and other venues, might affect her decisions on the Supreme Court bench. As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) skillfully unpacked in his questioning today, years of aggressive advocacy by conservative groups such as the Federalist Society have left a lasting imprint on the federal judiciary, enabling the idea to take hold in the public square that originalists such as Barrett are empirically “better” at interpreting the law than their progressive counterparts—more rational and less inclined to allow ideology, emotion, and the current political climate to influence their decisions. As Barrett herself said, America needs judges who apply the rule of law rather than “disturbing, changing, updating” and “adjusting” what that law requires. “It’s not the law of Amy,” she said, “it’s the law of the American people.”

If Democratic senators want to dismantle the false notion that conservative judges don’t allow factors other than “the law” to influence their reading of the Constitution, and in the process learn more about what Barrett actually thinks, they might try pursuing these lines of inquiry:

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[hlthe2b]

1. Those are good. I hope some aids are "listening"...

[plcdude]

2. Good article

Staff and senators on both sides should read it, thanks for providing this article.

[Bettie]

3. More people than you think know what she really meant

when she declined to give an answer. It meant "Yes, I belong to the right wing and will do my level best to destroy any law that helps people who aren't wealthy.".

That's what it means and nearly everyone knows it.