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By Jenna Sundel
News Reporter
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Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett spoke about the importance of keeping politics out of the High Court and urged civility and compromise in governance during an appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on Tuesday.
"A democracy requires compromise," Barrett said. "We can't govern ourselves if we're not willing to compromise and meet in the middle. Moreover, you know, we're all in this together, and if we have a winner takes all approach, where you just want to crush the enemy, if you regard people who disagree with you as the enemy, we can't constructively move forward as a society."
Why It Matters
Barrett, a conservative, was appointed by Trump during his first presidential term. The Court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority. The majority has ruled in favor of the Trump administration on multiple key issues, including immigration enforcement and cuts at federal government agencies.
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Barrett has previously broken with the conservative majority and sided with liberal justices to rule against the Trump administration.
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Earlier this year, Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, who is also conservative, joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson in a ruling upholding a lower court order that unfroze $2 billion in foreign aid.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that half of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Supreme Court.
What To Know
Barrett appeared at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley as part of a promotional tour for her book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.
Barrett stressed that the court's decisions should be driven by law rather than politics.
"I think that the best thing that the court can do is what the court has always tried to do, and it's to not decide cases with an eye toward political reaction, or popular reaction," Barrett said. "I think that if the court were to try to decide cases in a way that it thought it wanted the public to, it wouldn't be doing its job, because sometimes what the law requires runs counter to what the majority may want."
She urged the public to read the Court's opinions, which show the reasoning behind the decision.
"That's where you can try to hold us accountable, and that's where you can see, that's where we try to show our work," Barrett added. "And for us to have your trust, and for us to show institutional integrity, our opinions have to hold up. Their logic and their analysis [have] to hold up. And you might disagree with them when you read them, and that's great."
Barrett also spoke out against people who view others with differing ideas as "enemies."
"You might disagree with someone's ideas, but that doesn't mean that you dislike or want to destroy the person," Barrett said.
What People Are Saying
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in comments at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "I just don't see how we can live together in our common project of building America unless we're willing to see one another as fellow Americans, compromise and move forward."
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at the 6th Circuit Judicial Conference last week: "We all fall short at times, but I think redoubling our efforts on tone, especially when the tone around us is in the public sphere, in the political world, on all sides, is loud, it's probably important."
What Happens Next
The 2025 Supreme Court term begins on October 6.
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