During a heated exchange on the topic of Griswold v. Connecticut, Judge Amy Coney Barrett stood up to Democrat Senator Chris Coons and said “I Hope That You Aren’t Suggesting That I Do Not Have My Own Mind”
Barrett said “To be clear, as I think I said in response to this question yesterday, I do share Justice Scalia’s approach to text, originalism and textualism, but in the litany of cases you just identified, the particular votes that he cast are a different question of whether I would agree with the way he applied those principles in particular cases.”
“And I have already said, and I hope that you aren’t suggesting that I do not have my own mind or I could not think independently or that I would just decide, “Oh, let me see what Justice Scalia said about this in the past,” because I assure you I have my own mind,” she said.
“But everything that he said is not necessarily what I would agree with or what I would do if I were Justice Barrett.”
“That was Justice Scalia. So I share his philosophy, but I’ve never said that I would always reach the same outcome that he did,” she added.
