JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – President Donald Trump confirmed wide-spread reports over the last days when he officially named Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his choice for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barrett would fill the seat vacated after the Sept. 18 death of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Barrett currently serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a position she was appointed to by Trump in May 2017. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate later that fall.
Patrick Kilbane, a former law student of Barrett’s at Notre Dame, watched her Supreme Court nomination announcement Saturday from the News4Jax studios.
“You got to see her in the confirmation hearing -- what you see is what you get," Kilbane said. "One of the articles that we read earlier this week, they called her in the smartest person in the room, but also the most humble person in the room and very consistent day in and day out. When she taught us, she was the same way, and we’ve maintained contact throughout the time since I graduated in 2005.”
As a longtime professor of law at Notre Dame, she taught civil procedure, constitutional law and statutory interpretation.
Her scholarship focuses on originalism, which means interpreting the law based on what she believes to be the original intent of the framers.
She has been described as an ideological heir to her mentor, the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked.
Republican senators are already lining up for a quick confirmation of Barrett ahead of the November election.