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U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.), ’06, spoke to Federalist Society members from IU McKinney, Notre Dame and IU Maurer law school chapters in a remote event on October 14.

“Spellbinding” is how Senator Young described Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s performance in Senate Judiciary Committee hearings this week, according to Chris Goff, president of the IU McKinney chapter.

Goff said that Young compared the writing style of Barrett, a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals judge, to that of current Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch.

“They go to great lengths to try to make their writings accessible to regular people,” Young told the students. “Not all of the judges have done that in the modern era. You’ll find some of the court decisions that you read are often hard to penetrate, and sometimes they’re showing off a bit, demonstrating their intellect by using flowery prose.”

Barrett is of the judicial philosophy known as originalism, which emphasizes close adherence to the text of statutes and the Constitution. Among its adherents was the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Barrett clerked. Young anticipates Barrett being a justice who can persuade other members of the Court, according to Goff.

“I think she’s someone we can rely on to build consensus around her originalist, textualist positions,” Young said. “This is something that Scalia was unable to do, frankly. Scalia would offer blistering dissents, but he never demonstrated a real knack for bringing others to his side. I think Amy just might be able to do that on the Court.”