❄️

Justice Barrett joins the Chief Justice, whining “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?”

You have this phenomenon where at the beginning of the term. You know, the media will say, here are the cases to watch, and you know they'll list a couple big cases and then if one of those big cases turns out to be unanimous or turns out to be 7-2 or to have a scramble all of a sudden it falls out of the narrative and it wasn’t really one of the big cases. Because then the narrative will be like, well, but all the big cases came out by party of appointing president, right? So it’s, it’s really a numbers game, and I think you have to read very critically about the Court. I think it gets maybe more clicks or more people worked up if the Court is portrayed that way, but it’s just not consistent with the data.

Professor Vladeck has the analysis  if you’re interested (and if that link doesn’t work, there’s a gift link here). The tl:dr on his analysis is: who decides what’s big?

That’s not a small thing, because it calls into question Justice Barrett’s acumen. Granted, this is not her field, but she does offer her analysis, and that opens it to critique. And the fundamental problem here is: who gets to make the final judgment? Final judgement is, after all, an artificial construct invented to provide closure in legal matters. But outside the courtroom? Well, as Justice Barrett complains, even judicial opinions are subject to interpretation and evaluation. The decision may be final; the judgment on the reasoning never is.

Justice Barrett may argue her reasoning for why the cases she identifies are not “big,” except in the eyes of the media, but it’s not really for her to say. Because it’s really not a sensible argument; it’s just a whine. She doesn’t defend the reasoning of the cases, she just complains about how they are treated. Which, fair enough, she can have an opinion on. But scrutiny and disagreement and even criticism, go with the lifetime tenure and the power only 9 other people at a time have. Complaining about how people don’t talk about you the way you want them to is really pretty…childish.

And not really a good example of your ability to be a judge. I mean, people are still paying attention; and here you are, worried about what they’re thinking.