I am amused at how many times—on both sides—people write that Barrett is going to/or should “overturn” different existing decisions.
Overturning prior decisions on the Supreme Court happens, but not very often. Those decisions create precedents. The precedents are used to decide lower court cases.
In order for a case to be overturned it has to jump through some serious legal hoops. Most judges, at all levels, are loathe to overturn precedent—so cases to be overturned have to meander through some pretty choppy water to get back to the top court. And 99 out of 100 times the court will refuse to hear a case that has already been settled.
So, anyone thinking Barrett is going to single handedly select cases to be overturned, and then manage to convince everyone else to accept the case, and then manage to get a majority to go against the majority vote....is another 1 of 1,000.
So basic statistics tells you the odds of them over turning a previous case is .01 x .001 = 1/10,000. They don’t hear that many cases in a lifetime.
If you ever wonder why SCOTUS cases overturning a previous SCOTUS decision is rare, and such a big deal is because it is very, very rare.
I think she will be a fine Justice and will use “Original Text” as her basis. I am all in favor of that. But she is not going to single-handedly overturn the last 50 years of precedents before Christmas.
No, she won't.
But there are some very consequential things that are very ripe for Supreme Court jurisprudence.
1. Second Amendment, mentioned in the article.
2. Affirmative Action, direct preference for some races over others.
3. Obamacare and the entire idea the Commerce Clause allows the Federal Government to create laws for everything in the country, essentially denying the entire idea of separation of powers of the Federal government and the states.
Longer term, she is likely to aid in reigning in the Administrative State.
The Chevron doctrine needs to be reexamined, and justices have hinted they are willing to do so. This might be a start of enforcing the non-delegation doctrine inherent in Congress' legislative power.
We may even see an examination of doctrine that anything may be said of public figures, without fear of slander or libel lawsuits.