New York Times: Is Amy Coney Barrett Joining a Supreme Court Built for the Wealthy
EDITOR'S NOTE: Pack a union card and need another reason to Ditch Mitch and Dump Trump--as if another one's needed? Check out this excerpt from a Scranton, Pa., Times Tribune story and a New York Times opinion piece by Kim Phillips-Fein, author of Invisible Hands: The Businessman's Crusade Against the New Deal.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Judge Barbara Lagoa, the latter evidently President Trump's second choice for the Supreme Court, are well known as favorites of the right-wing, anti-union Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. “The Heritage Foundation infamously called unions ‘cartels’” the Times Tribune's Borys Krawczeniuk quoted Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey. “So I don’t want a Supreme Court picked by those two right-wing groups. And, unfortunately, virtually any nominee to the high court by this president will come from those lists.”
By KIM PHILLIPS-FEIN
Much of the public anxiety about Amy Coney Barrett — judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Notre Dame law professor and Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court — has focused on the question of abortion, and whether as a believer in originalism and a practicing Catholic she would be likely to vote to reverse Roe v. Wade.
At least as consequential might be her position on the Social Security Administration: She has suggested that an originalist — whose view of the law is rooted in the idea that the duty of judges is to ascertain whether laws reflect the original meaning of the Constitution — might say that it is not clearly permissible given a strict reading of the Constitution. This isn’t to say that she thinks it should or even could be repealed. “Some decisions,” she wrote, “thought inconsistent with the Constitution’s original public meaning are so well baked into government that reversing them would wreak havoc.” But it does indicate that in the area of judicial philosophy, there are many ways to be extreme.