Barrett is a huge proponent of originalism.

by MattG, Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 06:55 (7 days ago) @ Grantland

Really, the entire conservative judiciary has adopted it. Because it's a killer trick. You start by saying that the original documents are silent on the question presented (because if the law is clear, why are we here?)\

Then you say that the governmental action is question is either 1) not explicitly granted or 2) not explicitly proscribed by the constitution or whatever statute you're examining.

Then you get to claim the mantle of the Founding Fathers and say OF COURSE they wanted the government to have this power, or else they would have said they couldn't do that.

It gets trickier when the law says the opposite of what you want it to say. But the right-wingers figured it out. You basically do a seance and claim that isn't really what the founders meant in 1821 or whatever, based on contemporaneous writing that you cherry pick from some guy in England that they used to look up to for legal purposes.