Thread by @ashtonpittman

🚨: In a 2019 dissent, Amy Coney Barrett said the Constitution protects the right of non-violent felons to own guns, but does NOT protect their right to vote.

Gun ownership is an "individual right," but voting is a "civic right" belonging "only to virtuous citizens", she wrote.

Two Ronald Reagan appointees, Justices Ripple and Flaum, disagreed, ruling that guns rights are also reserved for "virtuous citizens."

Only Amy Coney Barrett claimed it should be more difficult to revoke gun rights than voting rights.
cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/image…

You may wonder why Amy Coney Barrett focuses this opinion on what people thought in the 18th & 19th centuries; the answer is simple: She is an originalist. Instead of viewing the Constitution as a living document, she interprets it based on the world of the time it was written.

Her originalist approach is far different from RBG—and even GOP-appointees like former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

That's why she could never arrive at the opinion Kennedy arrived at in a 2003 gay rights ruling (next tweet). vox.com/policy-and-pol…

Kennedy, ruling for gay rights in 2003: "Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the 5th or 14th Amendments known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight...." cont-->

Kennedy: "They knew times can blind us to certain truths & later generations can see laws once thought necessary & proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

Amy Coney Barrett's originalist ideology doesn't allow for "persons in every generation (to) invoke (the Constitution's) principles in their own search for greater freedom." Their only option in her view is to amend it—an extremely difficult process.

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1310000368894517248?s=20

Judge Amy Coney Barrett's view of the law, if most SCOTUS justices had followed it in the past, would've meant the court would've never:
-struck down laws that treated people differently based on their sex
-struck down bans on gay sex and gay marriage

Hundreds of examples exist.

Keep in mind this March 30, 2016 Hillary Clinton speech on the Supreme Court that the national media largely ignored.

HRC: "If you care about the fairness of elections...you should care about who wins the presidency & appoints the next Supreme Court justices."

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1309979175583977474

Here's more on Amy Coney Barrett's 2019 dissent:

https://twitter.com/aapolicyforum/status/1310023125829144577