Amy Coney Barrett: The Supreme Court’s New Swing Vote?

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She wants to be the swing vote. And that might lead her to issue opinions that seem to be more moderate than the conservative majority.

We should expect to see Supreme Court advocates and lawyers think about how to argue to get Justice Barrett’s vote. We’ve seen that in previous courts that it used to be the case with Justice [Anthony] Kennedy, Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor.

— Professor Alison LaCroix, of the University of Chicago Law School, in comments given to Newsweek on Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s potential capacity to become the Supreme Court’s new swing vote. Dan Urman, a political science professor at Northeastern, agreed with LaCroix, telling Newsweek, “Barrett seems to be a principled conservative and potential swing vote, even more than Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Kavanaugh.”

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.