Why MAGA Turned on Amy Coney Barrett
Plus: The Supreme Court upholds a state ban on transgender care for minors.
Since joining the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has voted with the majority to expand gun rights, curtail affirmative action, kill Chevron deference, and eliminate the constitutional right to abortion, all causes that have long been near and dear to the hearts of American conservatives. Yet despite her role in bringing about these landmark conservative victories, a notable faction of the American right is now bizarrely denouncing Barrett as a closet liberal, a "diversity, equity, and inclusion hire," or worse. What gives?
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For the record, I have also found fault with some of Barrett's legal views in recent years. But the notion that she is some kind of intellectual lightweight is ludicrous. Also preposterous is the notion that she is some kind of Justice David Souter redux. The reason why conservatives felt so betrayed by Souter is because not so long after President George H.W. Bush appointed him to SCOTUS, Souter joined the majority in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which saved Roe v. Wade (1973), and thus saved the right to abortion, from destruction. By contrast, not so long after Trump appointed Barrett to SCOTUS, she joined the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), which destroyed both Casey and Roe. Barrett's conservative legal credentials seem plenty shiny.
So, what really explains the current right-wing animus directed at this Trump-appointed justice?
In an illuminating new profile of Barrett and her detractors, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor aptly summarizes the situation. "Overall, [Barrett's] assumption of the seat once held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has moved the court's outcomes dramatically to the right," Kantor notes. "But in Trump-related disputes, she is the member of the supermajority who has sided with him the least."
In short, the MAGA right has turned on Barrett because Barrett is seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump.
And she is not the only legal conservative who has been deemed guilty of committing that apparently unforgivable sin. Trump himself, you may recall, recently attacked both the Federalist Society and its former leader, Leonard Leo, who was one of the key architects of Trump's highly successful spate of first-term judicial appointments.
Yet this is how Trump is now repaying Leo, his once highly valuable consigliere. "I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use the Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges," Trump declared. "I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions." According to Trump, "I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations."
Trump did not specify which of his judicial appointments came about as a result of this supposed "bad advice." But it is probably safe to assume he was referring to Barrett and the other "Trump judges" who have ruled against him in his second term.
Alas for Trump, his troubles with "disloyal" judges may soon get a whole lot worse.
Remember that the Supreme Court has not yet truly weighed in—meaning, it has not yet ruled on the merits—on any of the major legal challenges that have been filed against Trump's second-term agenda. These challenges include the constitutional case against Trump's unilateral tariffs, the constitutional case against Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, the statutory case against Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport certain immigrants, and the statutory case against Trump's unilateral deployment of the California National Guard in Los Angeles.
There are not only compelling legal reasons for Trump to lose every one of those cases, but one or more of Trump's own SCOTUS appointees may help to forge the majority that rules against him.
If you think Trump is mad at the Federalist Society now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
In Other Legal News
The Supreme Court issued five decisions in argued cases yesterday. Perhaps the most notable of which was Chief Justice John Roberts' 6–3 opinion in United States v. Skrmetti. This hot-button case involved a Tennessee law that forbids healthcare providers from offering certain transgender care for minors.
According to the chief justice, the Court was unwilling "to second-guess the lines" drawn by Tennessee lawmakers. "It may be true, as the plaintiffs contend," Roberts wrote, "that puberty blockers and hormones carry comparable risks for minors no matter the purposes for which they are administered. But it may also be true, as Tennessee determined, that those drugs carry greater risks when administered to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, and gender incongruence. We afford States 'wide discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.'"
Roberts also argued that the state law was permissible under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause because it "does not prohibit conduct for one sex that it permits for the other. Under [the state law], no minor may be administered puberty blockers or hormones to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence; minors of any sex may be administered puberty blockers or hormones for other purposes."
Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that Roberts' opinion "contorts logic and precedent…inexplicably declaring that it must uphold Tennessee's categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as 'any reasonably conceivable state of facts' might justify it." According to Sotomayor, "by retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims."
The Supreme Court will be back in action again tomorrow, June 20, to deliver one or more additional opinions. I've still got two big undecided cases on my radar. We'll see what we get.
