Today's New York Times features an extensive profile of Justice Amy Coney Barrett by Jodi Kantor. The article opens with a tidbit that I had not seen reported previously.
As President Trump was leaning toward appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court five years ago, some advisers shared doubts about whether she was conservative enough. But he waved them away, according to someone familiar with the discussions. He wanted a nominee religious conservatives would applaud, and with an election approaching, he was up against the clock.
Soon after Justice Barrett arrived at the court she began surprising her colleagues. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. assigned her to write a majority opinion — among her first — allowing the seizure of state property in a pipeline case, according to several people aware of the process. But she then changed her mind and took the opposite stance, a bold move that risked irritating the chief justice.
The case in question was PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey. At the time I speculated that Justice Barrett may have lost the majority in that case. What the NYT reports, however, is that she did not lose the majority so much as she abandoned it by changing her position (and, in the process, getting it right).
