Thread by @OrinKerr

A few random and unhelpful thoughts on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a thread.

FWIW, I don't know Judge Barrett well, although we've met. She was a fellow at @gwlaw in 2001-02, during my first year on the faculty there. I spent at least some time with her back then, and I recall her as very impressive. I recall her as super smart and very personable.

Of course, I realize that a lot of readers couldn't care less whether she is smart or personable. On Twitter, some may be annoyed by even mentioning those things. I gather many want to know how she will vote: the right way (as they see it) or the wrong way (as they they see it).

On that front, I have no special expertise. However, I haven't seen anyone suggest she would be a swing vote on any foreseeable issue. And that's my working assumption, that she'll be a reliable conservative vote, moving the Court's 5th vote in many cases to Kavanaugh or Gorsuch.

I assume the result is the most conservative court we will have seen in almost a century, although of course it's hard to compare eras. Either way, very conservative.

It may be moderated somewhat by three factors. First, the Chief may take big cases for himself and write more narrowly than the other 5 conservatives want. Second, I think Gorsuch will sometimes vote on the liberal side in big cases.

And third, I suspect (although I don't know) that Kavanaugh is influenced more by an institutional sense than others, not quite at the Chief level but in that direction, which may matter in some cases. But still, that's a very conservative court on which that matters. /end

There's a twitter rule that when you formally end a thread with "/end", you must immediately come up with more thoughts. So here are some more random and unhelpful thoughts:

With recent nominations, there has been a lot of criticism that all of the Justices went to a small number of academic institutions. If you cared about that, then note that Barrett didn't go to Ivies, etc. She could have, no doubt, but didn't.

Also, from a resume perspective, this is a very traditional pick. Barrett comes as a Court of Appeals judge (like 8 of 9 Justices on recent court); former law professor (like 3 of 9 Justices on recent court); and former SCOTUS clerk (like 5 of 9 Justices on recent court).

Also, for anyone who cares about legal scholarship, I would guess that having Barrett on the Court will fuel more public law scholarship on originalism (whether you like it or not, it's harder to ignore when three Justices are explicit adopters of it).