JUSTICE ON THE BRINK

The veteran New York Times Supreme Court reporter charts the first term of the right-leaning, avowedly religious supermajority now on the bench.

Why are six of the nine Supreme Court justices Catholic? The answer, writes Greenhouse, can be “summarized in one word: abortion.” While a president isn’t supposed to demand a quid-pro-quo pledge to end Roe v. Wade, the assumption is that an observant Catholic will quietly do their best to undermine the constitutional right to abortion. Thus it surely was when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, who, though well prepared for the post—a Notre Dame Law professor called her the best student he’d ever seen—was also identified with far-right conservatism, a key member of the Federalist Society “who proclaimed her fidelity to a theory of constitutional interpretation known as originalism.” Never mind that the original Constitution made little room for non-Whites and nonmales: Barrett joined with a long line of conservative justices who saw little room for constitutional evolution. Though Greenhouse warns that the shift to a far-right court will make it Trump’s more than Chief Justice Roberts’ for decades to come, Barrett has surprised with a couple of judgments, notably in refusing to allow challenges to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Even so, observes the author, Barrett has also quietly participated in a privileging of religious conviction, perhaps opening the door to challenges to same-sex marriage on the grounds of one’s religious views. “Renegotiating the boundary between church and state was part of the unstated charge to the most recent nominees,” writes Greenhouse, “so the degree to which religion dominated the 2021-2022 term came as no surprise.” And if Barrett and, to a lesser extent, Kavanaugh have not leapt into this renegotiation with vigor yet, Greenhouse suggests that it’s only a matter of time until they do.

For Supreme Court watchers, provocative; for civil libertarians, alarming.