Barrett pushes back on label of 'swing justice'

justthenews.com

Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett pushed back on the label of "swing justice," saying she doesn't see herself that way.

“A swing justice — that makes it sound like you sort of are swinging back and forth, and you can’t make up your mind,” Barrett, the most junior conservative justice, said Thursday at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center for the inaugural SCOTUSBlog Summit: On The Merits, The Hill reported.

“And that is not how my approach to judging,” she told the crowd listening to her discuss her new book, “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution,” with U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay.

Barrett, who was the last Supreme Court justice appointed by President Trump in his first term, has been a key vote in several of the Trump administration's emergency appeals.

“People might agree or disagree with either the philosophy or the result that I reach in applying that philosophy in an individual case, but I don’t think of myself as a swing justice,” she said.

When Barrett has decided against the administration in emergency cases, it caused intense online backlash from Trump's supporters.

“I’ve had to just learn to tune it out,” Barrett said when asked how she handles criticism, noting that she doesn't have social media.