How will a new U.S. Supreme Court Justice affect our nation's politics?

A divided Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as the 115th Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, Oct. 26.

How will Justice Barrett’s appointment affect our nation’s politics?

“I would expect that the decisions that come out of the court on anything like abortion, immigration, crime control— a lot of these are gonna have a much more conservative perspective,” said Craig Renetzky, a criminal defense attorney and lecturer in CSUN’s Department of Criminology and Justice Studies.

But Renetzky also said Supreme Court justices’ political philosophies can change over the course of their lifetime appointments.

Democrats have raised concerns that that Barrett’s religious views may interfere with her decisions.

“She’s a disciple of the late Justice Antonin Scalia,” said Bruce Zucker, Associated Chair of Criminology and Justice Studies at CSUN — a justice who, Zucker says, is no liberal, “but he wasn’t as far to the right as people like [Justice] Clarence Thomas have proven to be.”

Zucker further gave an example on how Scalia surprised people with his decision when “Scalia blasted sort of the conservative bent” on a criminal defense arena.

Although Scalia had a conservative bent at times, and this can in turn give people hope that Justice Barrett will have the same approach on decisions.

It is important to note that Barrett’s mentor Justice Antonin Scalia was a constitutional originalist.

Kimberly West-Faulcon, Professor of Law at Loyola Marymount University, said Scalia and Barrett both ascribe to a judicial philosophy known as “original public meaning originalism.”

“It sounds great to the lay person,” West-Faulcon said, “but it operates in such a way that the judges who are implementing it have an immense amount of power.”

“The reality,” West-Faulcon added, “is [originalism] is a way to cover up a lot of your ideological beliefs a lot of things that you may not, in your own mind, know.”

Many abortion rights activists are are concerned Barrett may cast a decisive vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision.

“That would mean we would return to the status quo that existed before Roe v. Wade,” said Bertrall Ross, the Chancellor’s Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, “in which it would be a state determination as to whether and to what extent women would have reproductive freedom and certain states would make different choices.”

Liberals worry not only about reproductive rights, but also about gun policies.

West-Faulcon believes Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh might be willing to rule favorably on more permissive gun laws.

“Justice Kavanaugh and again I think Justice Barrett is willing to … say, ‘Well if a lot of people have the weapon, it’s no longer unusual,’” West-Faulcon said. “That’s an approach that could mean that the most dangerous assault rifles, if enough Americans were to buy them, we could live in a dystopian America where people are walking around everywhere with assault rifles.”

“Sadly, for some Americans,” West-Faulcon added, “what I just described is not dystopia it is what they see when they walk out of their homes.”

This story was reported by the following team: