Amy Coney Barrett Is Liberal Justices’ ‘Best Chance’: SCOTUS Analyst

The liberal minority on the U.S. Supreme Court may face an even tougher battle under a second Trump administration.
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s biggest impacts during his first term in the White House was setting up the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority. Trump, elected to a second term this week, appointed three justices during his first four years and may now have the chance to nominate more.
That leaves the three left-leaning justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—as the minority for years to come.
CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic said Friday that the liberal justices may find some hope in the court’s youngest member, 52-year-old Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Trump nominated in 2020.
“There’s always been this search for this center, and that’s what you see going on now,” Biskupic said on CNN News Central. “The three liberals left there…are desperately looking for anyone at the center, and so far, Amy Coney Barrett has offered them the best chance.”
Barrett has shown signs of being willing to reach across the aisle in her short tenure on the bench. In June, she wrote the dissenting opinion after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the federal obstruction statute that has been used against several defendants charged in connection to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Later that month, Barrett split again from her fellow conservatives after the High Court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing air-quality regulations. In her dissenting opinion, Barrett wrote that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch had “cherry-picked” statements by the EPA to use in the court’s majority opinion.
Biskupic noted on Friday that even with the occasional “gestures toward the center,” Barrett has still sided with her fellow conservative justices “90 percent of the time.” In July, Barrett joined the other five conservative justices in ruling on Trump’s presidential immunity case. She also was part of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
“But she’s only 52 years old,” Biskupic said of Barrett. “She’s the youngest justice on the court. And you know, it’s a bit of hope springs eternal, and you never know where someone’s going to go.”
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani echoed that even though Barrett is a conservative, “she has been more cautious and has moved toward the center over time.”
“Even though she voted to overrule Roe v. Wade, she also voted to maintain access to abortion bills and to allow emergency abortions for the time being,” Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said over email to Newsweek on Friday.
Rahmani also highlighted Barrett’s decision to write her own concurrence in Trumps’ presidential immunity case, which he said “didn’t go [as] far as the majority opinion.”
“She is probably closer to Chief Justice [John] Roberts with those two justices being the closest thing to swing votes in a 6-3 divided court,” he added.
There is speculation that some of the Supreme Court’s elder members—namely, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—could face pressure to resign once Trump is sworn back into office, opening the door for younger conservative justices to take their place on the bench.
Biskupic said on Friday that it’s “hard to know how much more” conservative the Supreme Court could get if Trump can appoint new members. But if the president-elect can bring in younger justices, “his legacy will continue for decade upon decade upon decade.”
“I used to say that our children will be living with a Donald Trump court that was back during his first term,” Biskupic said. “Now it’s going to be our grandchildren will be living with Donald Trump’s court if he does get more appointments.”
Update 11/08/24, 8:29 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional expert comment.