At this time’s New York Occasions options an extensive profile of Justice Amy Coney Barrett by Jodi Kantor. The article opens with a tidbit that I had not seen reported beforehand.
As President Trump was leaning towards appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court docket 5 years in the past, some advisers shared doubts about whether or not she was conservative sufficient. However he waved them away, in response to somebody acquainted with the discussions. He wished a nominee non secular conservatives would applaud, and with an election approaching, he was up in opposition to the clock.
Quickly after Justice Barrett arrived on the courtroom she started stunning her colleagues. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. assigned her to put in writing a majority opinion — amongst her first — permitting the seizure of state property in a pipeline case, in response to a number of individuals conscious of the method. However she then modified her thoughts and took the alternative stance, a daring transfer that risked irritating the chief justice.
The case in query was PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey. On the time I speculated that Justice Barrett may have lost the majority in that case. What the NYT reviews, nevertheless, is that she didn’t lose the bulk a lot as she deserted it by altering her place (and, within the course of, getting it proper).
PennEast was an attention-grabbing case in some ways. Amongst different issues, it produced an attention-grabbing lineup. The Chief wrote for the Court docket, joined by Justices Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kavanaugh. The dissenters had been Justices Barrett, Thomas, Kagan, and Gorsuch, and for my part they’d the higher of the argument, doctrinally and prudentially. (Certainly, if all you instructed me a couple of case was this lineup, I might be inclined to imagine the dissenters acquired it proper.)
For many who neglect, Justice Barrett’s dissent started:
A simple software of our precedent resolves this case. Congress handed the Pure Fuel Act in reliance on its energy to control interstate commerce, and we’ve got repeatedly held that the Commerce Clause doesn’t allow Congress to strip the States of their sovereign immunity. Recognizing that barrier, the Court docket insists that eminent area is a particular case. New Jersey has no sovereign immunity to claim, it says, as a result of the States surrendered to non-public condemnation fits within the plan of the Conference. This argument has no textual, structural, or historic assist. As a result of there isn’t a purpose to deal with non-public condemnation fits in a different way from some other explanation for motion created pursuant to the Commerce Clause, I respectfully dissent.
