Amy Coney Barrett may be poised to split conservatives on the Supreme Court [View all]

[marble falls]

Amy Coney Barrett may be poised to split conservatives on the Supreme Court

Legal experts see signs of a “raging” philosophical debate among the court’s supermajority.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/19/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-conservatives-rift-00164047



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The question at the center of the spat may seem abstract: How should the court use “history and tradition” to decide modern-day legal issues? But the answer may determine how the court resolves some of the biggest cases set to be released in the coming days, particularly its latest foray into the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

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But Barrett recently foreshadowed that she is distancing herself from that approach. If she breaks with Thomas in the gun case, known as United States v. Rahimi, and if she can persuade at least one other conservative justice to join her, they could align with the court’s three liberals to uphold the gun control law.

That outcome would avoid the certain political backlash that would result from a high court declaration that alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to carry a gun. Thomas, famous for his intransigence, might not care about such backlash, but the more pragmatically minded Barrett is surely aware of it.

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The dispute over the historical approach — part of a legal philosophy known as originalism — also could have implications for Donald Trump’s pending bid to have the high court declare him immune from prosecution for attempting to subvert the 2020 election. The potential outcomes in that case, though, are less clear than in the gun case.

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It seems Justices Alito and Gorsuch are leaning towards Thomas’ 'historicalism' , while Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh are not seeming to lean towards 'historicalism.