Here’s what you should know about one of Trump’s possible Supreme Court picks

Religious conservatives would have much to be pleased with Barrett, a devout Catholic.

Barrett has stated that “life begins at conception,” according to a 2013 Notre Dame Magazine article. She also said that justices should not be strictly bound by Supreme Court precedents, a deference known as stare decisis, leaving open the possibility that she could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if seated on the court.

She could serve for decades

At 48-years-old, Barrett would be the youngest justice currently on the Supreme Court, making it entirely plausible that Barrett could leave her mark on a swath of cases for a generation or more.

A protégé of Scalia

Barrett clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia after graduating from Notre Dame University Law School. Like Scalia, Barrett is a strict originalist and would “enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks is clearly in conflict with it,” she wrote in a 2013 Texas Law Review article.

She can go toe-to-toe with Democrats

During her confirmation hearing to serve on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, Barrett engaged in a contentious exchange with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The California Democrat pressed Barrett on her deeply held religious beliefs and how they could impact her jurisprudence, which led to criticism that Democrats’ questioning was anti-Catholic.

“The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that people have fought for years in this country,” Feinstein said to Barrett.

Barrett responded back sharply: “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”

She’d join a small club.

Barrett, if nominated and confirmed, would only be the fifth woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court. She’d join Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor on the bench.

Harriet Miers’ 2005 nomination was the last time a Republican president picked a woman for a seat on the court.

Her record

Barrett has served less than three years on the 7th circuit after working as a law professor at Notre Dame University for nearly two decades.

Her short tenure on the bench means there’s been little time to develop a body of legal opinions, which lawmakers from both sides of the aisle would likely scrutinize. Republicans, having been burned in the past by GOP presidents’ nominees who ended up voting more liberally, would also likely demand reassurances from Barrett before granting her a lifetime appointment to the court.

Personal life

Barrett, born and raised in New Orleans, is married to Jesse Barrett, a former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Indiana. Together they have seven children.