Conservatives are up in arms right now over Amy Coney Barrett. It wasn’t all that long ago that Donald Trump took a major chance in nominating her to the Supreme Court mere weeks before the 2020 presidential election. She was going to be our conservative champion on the Supreme Court. And now, she’s joined the liberal wing of the court in rejecting Trump's perfectly reasonable attempt to review $2 billion in questionable foreign aid payments. But are conservatives jumping the gun? Is it really time to give up on ACB?
Let's be clear about what happened here. President Trump imposed a 90-day moratorium on foreign aid disbursements—you know, to make sure American taxpayer dollars weren't being wasted on corrupt foreign schemes. But some activist judge in D.C. decided they knew better than the President of the United States and issued a temporary restraining order. And instead of defending executive authority, Barrett helped rubber-stamp this judicial overreach.
I’m not going to lie: Barrett has been channeling her inner John Roberts lately, and now everyone’s wondering if she’s on the path to becoming the next David Souter. Remember, Souter was smeared as a right-wing extremist during his confirmation—only to spend his career siding with the court’s liberal wing. Let’s hope history isn’t repeating itself.
Related: Supreme Court Rules Against Trump's Bid to Stop $2 Billion in USAID Funding
I get the concern. The left's favorite law professors are suddenly singing Barrett's praises. But I think we have to face the facts that even conservative justices sometimes disappoint us, and when that happens it doesn’t mean they’ve gone Souter.
Remember, justices on both wings of the court can surprise us. While the liberal wing—Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—usually votes as a bloc, there have been instances where one of them joined the conservative majority, leading to decisions that clashed with Democratic priorities. Heck, even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg occasionally voted with the conservative bloc. It wasn’t often, obviously, but it happened.
The occasional vote against the conservative position doesn’t mean Amy Coney Barrett is no longer a conservative, never was a conservative justice, or that she’s gone the way of Souter.
We didn’t back Barrett back in 2020 because of her compelling personal story, her impressive ability to answer questions from memory, or any expectation that she’d always rule the way we wanted. We supported her because she proved herself to be a brilliant, capable originalist—someone committed to defending the Constitution against progressive overreach. And she’s certainly sided with the right wing of the court often enough, on major cases, that there’s no reason to panic every time she issues a disappointing ruling.
That said, her latest vote is infuriating. She’s helping enable politically motivated lawfare against the very president who put her on the bench. But this is a fight I still believe we’ll win. So, no, I don’t think Barrett is a lost cause, and we don't need to panic.
Yet.
