In this week’s issue, Margaret Talbot profiles Amy Coney Barrett, the newest Supreme Court Justice, who has become a symbol of conservative feminism to many Americans. I spoke with Talbot about her piece on Barrett, the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, and the ominous future for abortion and voting rights.
When did you first decide to write about Amy Coney Barrett?
It was in the fall, at the start of this new Supreme Court term. It looked like it was going to be one with a number of blockbuster cases, especially involving abortion and gun rights. Like a lot of people, I was just curious about her. There had been a fair amount of attention on her during the confirmation hearings, about her religious background, her distinctive place on the political and social spectrum, and her involvement with this community called People of Praise. It kind of died down, partly because of other news in the world, and partly because her first term was relatively quiet. So it seemed like a time to revisit what impact she was having on the Court.
A decision on the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization isn’t expected until later this year. What should we look for until then?
There will continue to be vaccination-mandate-related cases, many of which will probably come through what they call the shadow docket, when cases get heard by the Court, not with full argument and on an emergency basis. There’s been a lot of criticism recently about overuse of the so-called shadow docket—and some of that criticism has come from the liberal Justices. It came up again, in a voting-rights case this week. The conservative Justices, and Justice Alito in particular, has said, don’t call it the shadow docket, don’t make it sound sinister. But the fact is many more cases on fairly important issues have been heard this way lately. That’s a concern.
We should also look out for how Barrett votes in a gun-rights case (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen), one of the first major gun-related cases the Court has heard in some time.
Talk about Monday’s ruling on the Alabama congressional map. What does it mean for voters there and in the rest of the country?
It’s not surprising, but it’s really, really dismaying and important and distressing. In Alabama, there had been congressional redistricting that basically diluted the power of Black voters. Twenty-seven per cent of the population in Alabama is Black, and the people who challenged [the redistricting] basically said it’s illegal, it’s a racial gerrymander that violates the Voting Rights Act. Interestingly, a lower court in Alabama, with three judges on the panel—two of them Trump appointees—said that it was, in fact, a violation of the Voting Rights Act, and that the legislature had to go back and create a new majority-Black district that would reflect the state’s over-all population. The Court then heard a challenge on the emergency docket and ended up staying the lower court’s ruling. In other words, they let the map that the legislature had drawn stand. And that means it will be in place for the elections in November.
This is part of a gradual, but steady, effort by the Supreme Court to limit the scope and reach of the Voting Rights Act. It really is a threat to democracy and to the voting rights of minorities.
You wrote that with Barrett’s confirmation, we face a future where the Court will be imposing conservative-minority views that a lot of Americans may not agree with. Now Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring. What should we expect during the nominating process of his successor?
I think it’s likely that President Biden will nominate one of the judges he’s mentioned, one of the Black women in particular, because that’s been his pledge. Unfortunately, from the perspective of liberals and progressives, it won’t change the balance of the Court. It won’t dilute the supermajority. There’s a limit to what three liberals on the Court can do.
Read “Amy Coney Barrett’s Long Game.”
—Jessie Li, newsletter editor
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