WASHINGTON: Four years ago, Amy Coney Barrett was a little-known law professor in Indiana. Within weeks, she is likely to be the newest associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barrett’s fast-track rise, set to drive the nation’s highest court to the right for a generation or longer, is the fulfillment of a decadeslong effort by conservatives to remake the federal bench that kicked into high gear after President Donald Trump was elected. For Trump, whose 2016 victory hinged in large part on white evangelicals reluctant support of his candidacy tied to his promise to fill the seat vacated by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia with a conservative, the latest nomination brings his first term full circle.
Even before Ruth Bader Ginsburgs death, Trump was campaigning for reelection in 2020 on his…