The Senate is expected to squeak out a vote to send Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, just eight days before the presidential election, and a few days after Democrats boycotted a Judiciary Committee vote on her nomination. As of now, Republicans are projected to have enough votes in the full Senate to confirm Barrett to a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court.
If confirmed, what will Barrett bring to the table? A believer in literal interpretations of the constitution and a former law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, she’ll be next in line to continue Scalia’s conservative legacy on the court, says Dan Urman, who teaches a course at Northeastern on Constitutional law and the modern U.S. Supreme Court.
“In a lot of ways, she represents the triumph of Scalia,” says Urman, who is also director of hybrid and online programs in the School of Law, and director of the Law and Public Policy minor. “She’d be the first Scalia clerk to be a Supreme Court justice—something that represents a sort of family tree, or coaching tree. She’s keeping his originalism and textualism alive,” Urman says.
